The second pair of subjects in our series of interviews with rider and crew chief are Nicky Hayden and Juan Martinez. After Hayden left Honda and joined Ducati, he was first paired with Cristhian Pupulin - or Pipi, as he is called by the Italians in Ducati - but after a few races, Ducati switched Pupulin's role and recruited Juan Martinez to take over as crew chief. Since then, the relationship has blossomed, with the Kentuckian and the Spaniard building a good understanding of each other and getting to grips well with the difficult Ducati.
We spoke to Hayden and Martinez at the Sachsenring, ahead of the German GP there. During an interesting 15 minutes, we spoke about how the pair started to work together, what it takes to build a strong relationship between crew chief and rider, and where Hayden and Martinez feel the other excel. It provided a fascinating insight into the way that rider and crew chief work together, and the level of trust and respect the two must have for it to be a succes.
MotoMatters.com: I want to talk about your relationship, the two of you, and the way that you work together. Because to me, the relationship between rider and crew chief is so crucial. First of all, Nicky, when you joined Ducati, you had Pipi [the nickname of Cristhian Pupulin, a long-time Ducati engineer] as a crew chief. That lasted three or four races, but communication was difficult because of the language barrier. How did you end up paired with Juan?
Nicky Hayden: Well, Pipi was a great crew chief. His knowledge was very good, but the language was just too hard. We couldn't communicate, that was very difficult. So we could see after a few races it wasn't going to work. So we started to look around, see who was out there that spoke English, and also somebody that knew Italian.
I couldn't have had a better situation, because Juan had already been at Ducati. So he was able to jump in five races into the season and already have an understanding of the bike, the team. Speaks perfect English, perfect Italian. [Juan Martinez protests modestly] So I was really lucky.
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