By Dean Adams
Outside of Italy, the appointment of Silvano Galbusera as Valentino Rossi’s crewchief–after he fired Jeremy Burgess–was met with levels of outright disbelief. In fact, one of Galbusera’s former riders, when called for comment, said, “No, that can’t be right. Are you sure?”. He quickly rattled off all the reasons that there is no way Rossi would or should appoint Silvano Galbusera to that position: Among others, Galbusera has on-going health issues, does not work well in a stressful environment and he would have a gigantic learning curve in front of him to work at the top level in MotoGP.
However, as the American axiom goes, Rossi had made his bed and now it was his to lay in. It was Rossi’s decision to fire Burgess and replace him with Silvano Galbusera, and his alone.
Rossi announced today in Thailand that he’s changing crewchiefs next season. Who will steer Rossi’s 2020 effort–which may be his final year of racing? Will Rossi open his gigantic bank book and do it Rob Muzzy-style–hand Marquez’s crewchief a blank check? Or steer Ramon Forcada and Wilco Zeelenberg from their current berths running the Petronas Yamaha team back to the factory effort now that they have shown they can take a blank sheet of paper rider like Fabio Quartararo and make him a front-runner?
Ah, no.
Rossi’s VR46 Moto2 team crewchief, David Munoz, will replace “Gabba”.
