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- F1 champion Sebastian Vettel misses the point with Social Media
The motorsport world has gradually started to shake off the festive cobwebs as January continues to get the new calendar year underway with a number of high profile events taking place this week.
- Social Media and London 2012
We submitted a short blog for The UK Sports Network this week with some social media predictions for 2012. Being Olympics year, and with a number of athletes on the Sine Qua Non books, including Zac Purchase and Paralympic athletes Charlotte Henshaw and Ollie Hynd, we looked at how the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be the first true social media summer Games.
RT @InsideFerrari: Ferrari and Santander together until 2017 http://t.co/iGjflr3D #F1 #Sponsorship
Interesting to see how #London2012 sponsors use athletes - past and present - in activation and engagement #cisdcampbell
Rossi turns Rosso
So it’s finally confirmed. Nine time motorcycling world champion Valentino Rossi will be a Ducati man from 2011. Not a huge surprise by any means but it finally allows everyone’s thoughts to turn to 2011 which promises to be one of the most fiercely contested championship titles for years.
The partnership of Rossi with Ducati engineering genius Filippo Preziosi is likely to be a powerful combination, one that will immediately place Ducati and Rossi as the ones to beat in 2011. But it promises to be an intriguingly poised battle for supremacy between several proven race winners in 2011.
Casey Stoner will join former Ducati team manager Livio Suppo at Honda, while 2010 champion elect Jorge Lorenzo will assume full charge of the development reins at Yamaha in Rossi’s absence. Dani Pedrosa can never be discounted for the odd race win although his ability to mount a serious championship challenge remains in doubt. One to watch, though, is Ben Spies, who will presumably step up admirably to the factory Yamaha team next season partnering Lorenzo after an impressive rookie season in 2010.
At Ducati, the signing of Rossi will inevitably turn their world upside down, just as it did for Yamaha six years ago. With Rossi you get much more than a rider, you inherit a legion of dedicated and passionate motorcycle racing fans for whom Rossi is MotoGP.
The throng of supporters, not only in Italy but internationally, who have remained loyal to The Doctor over the years will hang up their Fiat Yamaha caps, jackets, t-shirts in the cupboard alongside the other assorted Rossi team merchandise accumulated over the years, making room for a new ‘red’ section in their ever expanding shrines to #46.
Whatever Rossi wears becomes a symbol for MotoGP fans, a must-have item, something that brings them that bit closer to their idol. When Valentino moved from Michelin to Bridgestone tyres in 2008 and took his first ‘Bridgestone podium’ in Jerez, the red Bridgestone podium cap became the most sought after fashion accessory in the biking world and particularly in Italy.
If you listen hard enough you can probably already hear the cash registers already ringing at Ducati merchandise outlets around the world!
(CH)
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