Former MotoGP rider Andrea Dovizioso has taken over the management of the Monte Coralli motocross circuit in Faenza, Italy.
Italian former MotoGP rider Andrea Dovizioso has taken over the management of the Monte Coralli motocross circuit in Faenza, after the tender for its management was won by Dovizioso’s company, RPM.
Credit: Gold and Goose
The Crossodromo Monte Coralli will therefore be renamed ‘04 Park - Monte Coralli di Faenza’, taking of course the number with which Dovizioso raced in the MotoGP class.
Dovizioso’s plan is to make Monte Coralli something more than simply a motocross track. Instead, the track will become a full two-wheeled facility, focused on off-road motorcycling and motocross of course, but also pump track, for example.
Further, the Faenza track will also become the location for the Italian Motorcycle Federation’s (FMI) Technical Centre. To this end, Monte Coralli will receive an office, classroom, and a motorcycle garage that will be used to train both riders and technicians.
Dovizioso himself won the 125cc Motorcycle World Championship in 2004, and took a total of 24 Grand Prix victories, including 15 in MotoGP, in a 21-year career that ended only in September.
Despite his talents on asphalt, Dovizioso’s primary passion has always been motocross. Highlighting this, Red Bull made a film entitled ‘Dovi’s Great American Motocross Adventure’, in 2019. It followed Dovizioso as he travelled to California to ride motocross in the hub of the American dirt bike industry in the time before the 2019 Grand Prix of the Americas.
The year after, in 2020, he raced an Italian championship race before the start of the MotoGP season, which was delayed due to Covid, and picked up an injury which he carried into the season.
When Dovizioso announced he would be retiring from MotoGP this past season after his final home race in Misano, it was assumed he would go off to do something with motocross, although exactly what was unclear. Now, the answer is certain.
Andrea Dovizioso said: "This is a dream I've had for years. And when you have the chance to realise a dream like this, on a track like Monte Coralli, which for me has always been a reference (as well as being close to home), it really seems that all the pieces to complete that desire, have fit perfectly.
“04 Park – Monte Coralli is an exaggerated place, very large and in which we want to carry out important projects. I would like it to become a place where off-road enthusiasts, and not only, can meet, interact and share experiences, having fun. We will organise events and competitions.
“You can come there to tour or simply to spend a different day, in an environment made of and with passion. 04 Park – Monte Coralli is an ambitious project, a terrain in which off-road, mini cross and pump track will coexist and evolve together at the highest level, in a 'full gas' atmosphere.”
Monte Coralli is a well-established hard pack track in Faenza. It has a long history, and hosted three MXGP rounds in 2020 when the season was shortened and fit into a condensed period as a result of the Covid pandemic, which saw Grands Prix on Sunday-Wednesday-Saturday at many of that year’s tracks. Before 2020, the track's last appearance on the World Championship calendar was back in 2007, when Gautier Paulin won his first MX2 Grand Prix, and Sebastien Pourcel won the MX1 class.
Jorge Prado, 2020 MXGP of Citta di Faenza. - Ray Archer/KTM Media
The MXGP races at Monte Coralli in 2020 would prove pivotal and historic. Jeffrey Herlings crashed in morning practice for the Wednesday race, breaking a vertebrae in his neck and forcing him out for the season having gone 1-1 in the first Faenza GP. With Herlings out, Prado took the opportunity to take his first MXGP class overall victory with a 2-2 in the Wednesday race. Finally, Antonio Cairoli repeated Prado’s score of Wednesday in the third and final race at Monte Coralli.
Whether Dovizioso will return Monte Coralli to the World Championship remains to be seen, and perhaps it is not even his intention, but certainly it is no bad thing for Italian motocross to have someone with the combination of passion and experience of Dovizioso involved at such a high level in what is one of the country’s top motocross facilities.
