BEYOND: A LAMBORGHINI PODCAST VENTURES INTO THE WORLD OF TEAM SPIRIT WITH MATTEO ORTENZI, REVUELTO[1] PRODUCT LINE DIRECTOR, AND DAVIDE TARDOZZI, DUCATI MOTOGP TEAM MANAGER
Sant’Agata Bolognese, 10 August 2023.– Following its successful debut, Beyond: A Lamborghini Podcast is poised to reveal episode two. It remains true to the philosophy of taking key Lamborghini people centre-stage and embracing fresh lines of enquiry. But Beyond: A Lamborghini Podcast’s real masterstroke is to invite guests from outside the automotive world into the sphere of Sant’Agata in search of satisfying parallels. Hosted by Lamborghini Director of Communications Tim Bravo and lifestyle and music broadcaster Giulia Salvi, this is a podcast like no other.
For the second instalment, the focus is on leadership, the importance of team-work, and learning how to ride the ups and downs of life with a consistently positive mindset. These are subjects that much of the audience will identify with, but who better to elucidate on them than Matteo Ortenzi, the product line director for Lamborghini’s new range-topping model, the Revuelto, and Davide Tardozzi, former World Superbike racer and champion turned Team Manager for the Ducati MotoGP team.
As we discover, they’re individuals who have both been fortunate enough to transform their childhood passions into successful careers. But while that is a dream realised, neither is under any illusions about what is expected of them in such responsible and results-oriented positions. Ortenzi’s primary focus has been to oversee the development of Lamborghini’s new hybrid hypercar, the Revuelto, a machine which takes the Italian automotive legend into important new territory. So what are the major tasks and strategies as he sees them?
“The key word for me is trust. You reach teamwork when you gain trust,” he says. “The only way to manage the complexity of our world is to work in a very fast way, so the only way we have is teamwork – to communicate just looking in the eyes of your guys.”
Ortenzi continues, “[In this role] you have to coordinate the team, to ask them to do their own task in time, in the proper way, in order to match our targets. We are in the centre of the development but without a specific function on a single component of the car or on a single process. We have to bring the others to the right moment in time, to the right level of quality. Teamwork is my key tool.”
“Forming a close bond with the team, as individuals as much as anything else, is vital,” Ortenzi says. Lamborghini is a small but highly dynamic company, one that fosters and encourages a family atmosphere. This is an attribute that Davide Tardozzi, Team Manager of Ducati Lenovo Team MotoGP, is very familiar with.
“Creating this kind of family inside the team is very important,” he explains on Beyond: A Lamborghini Podcast, “because we are 50 people working together almost every day and staying abroad for racing six months. That means living together, travelling together, eating together, discussing everything. People miss their own families and they need to find inside the team another family feeling that gives them the possibility to stay away without problems and to be concentrated on the job. It’s not something that just happens, you have to create it.”
Tardozzi is a born racer, and is intimate with the emotional nature – and head-spinning pressures – of top-level motorsport. The paradox here, of course, is that everyone involved is there to win. But only one rider and team ever can. Thanks to the team’s intense work and commitment, Ducati is currently the outfit to beat in MotoGP.
“We are so focused on the win. In the last couple of years we showed that Ducati factory made a really huge effort on the technology side, on the organisation side and on the sporting side, choosing the right young riders and bringing them to the top until the World Championship of Francesco Bagnaia last year.
“My dream in the past was to win the MotoGP championship. Now my dream is to win again and the following one is to win again. I am a dreamer because I always want more. But in sport I love only to win and I feel pain when we lose. There is not one minute that we don’t think about improving the product or the racing bike. That’s something I think that’s common between Lamborghini and Ducati.”
For Ortenzi, the challenge might be outwardly different but the emotions are similar. He tells Tardozzi, “For me, what you have every weekend with the races are like the milestones of the project. We fight week-by-week, because everything you are not able to do in a proper way, in a milestone, then you have to recover on the next one.”
Just as one World Championship can never truly be enough, so the team behind cars like the Revuelto – already sold out for the first two years of production – simply never allow themselves to be content. There is always more to be done, to improve, and the desire to truly go beyond is insatiable.
“Having the first car is like having the first win, it’s a special moment for us,” Ortenzi says. “But you are never fully satisfied. There is always something you can do better. This is our mindset, and maybe sometimes this is too much, but we never stop to celebrate. We’re immediately thinking: “How can we do this a bit better?’ You also make the difference when you’re down, not when everything is going well, because this is easy. The really important thing is to react in a fast way.”
The easy path is simply of no interest to Ortenzi and the entire team at Automobili Lamborghini. And the Revuelto is a truly ‘clean sheet’ car.
“Everything had to be new. New engine, new architecture, new hybridised platform. Because again, to do the best, you have to risk something. And we risk having everything new in the car. We are sure now that we have a better sports car than before.”
Beyond: A Lamborghini Podcast is available to listen to on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, to watch on YouTube for a fully immersive experience, and via the special podcast hub on Lamborghini.com/podcast. A new episode will drop each month.
[1] The vehicle is not yet offered for sale and is therefore not subject to Directive 1999/94/EC. The fuel consumption and emissions data are in the type of approval stage.
Source: Lamborghini
Photograph and video: Lamborghini
