SYou are someone who didn’t end up on the motorbike in the name of his father but because he deeply wanted it. Is that so?
“Well, as a child I had the input of my father who made me try when I was five and a half years old. For fun we tried, for fun we won and for fun we continued. I finally found myself doing this in a serious way. Then, and I’m sorry to say this, when I arrived in the Moto3 world championship I had to leave school and moved. I was 17 at the time, when I realized that to go fast on a motorbike I would have to make some changes I didn’t think about it many times. All the choices I have made in my life for my sport I have made naturally. Basically this is what I want to do. It’s my life, my passion. It’s where I feel most comfortable, maybe someone likes to be at home, or at the bar. I’m at ease on a MotoGP at three hundred an hour.”
You have a younger brother and you are the one who is a rider in MotoGP: what relationship do you have?
“My brother is an idiot! In a good way eh, but… he’s an idiot! Now we’re very close, we argue a lot because he’s twenty and he’s in the classic twenty-year-old period where you think you know everything about life even if you basically don’t know shit. We are very close, we hang out a lot but at the same time we argue a lot, he is the person who makes me squirt more than anyone. But he loves me incredibly and perhaps he wants to see the result even more than me. There is certainly a very, very close relationship.”
Are you one of the few MotoGP riders who knows how to pay the bills?
“Eh, I’ll tell you the truth… I never paid them. But I don’t think it would be difficult, I do many other things and honestly I don’t think this would put me in difficulty.”
Tell me about Rome.
“I grew up with a Roman father and a Roman supporter, Rome in my heart. My father gave me this name, Fabio, because he is Roman. Really felt Rome, Rome. As I grew up I loved it more and more, it’s an incredible city, you see stories everywhere. And despite having a thousand shortcomings I really feel at home, then obviously there’s Roma football, it’s really cool to have such a close relationship, I’m their ambassador in motorsport. Edo Bove is a great friend of mine, I met half of the locker room, Walter Martinelli who is Roma’s physio is also my physio. Rome is my safe place, where I also try to disconnect. Then it’s not very motorsport, almost zero. Sometimes I think this is a limit, other times I’m happy like this. I like to split things up, do this three hundred percent and then go home and think about life in general.”
Was there ever a time when you thought that being Roman could be a problem in the world championship?
“It’s not a problem, but the growth you have to do to become a professional in here is a little more difficult. In Rome there is little motorsport, you struggle to train in the right facilities and get the right advice. In Emilia Romagna, however, there is much more passion about engines and it is easier to meet people who can give you the right idea or advice that works. And then simply… you go to the track, you find the Academy running and you have the opportunity to get to know them: that alone can make the difference.”
Franco Califano or Antonello Venditti?
“Difficult. I couldn’t choose, I’m in crisis. (Long silence, ed.) Maybe I say Venditti, but I really listen to a lot of songs by both of them.”
Your favorite film by Carlo Verdone.
“Ah, there’s that scene Big, Big and… Green that drives me crazy, every time with my friends we go crazy. His name is Vecchiarutti, her name is Enza Sessa. There is his son Steven playing football in the hall. My goodness, I feel bad there every time! With the receptionist asking if she can tell her son to stop dribbling. ‘Ah Steven!’”.
