MTECH Leathers - Great Poster Giveaway!

MTECH - the company which supplies Alvaro's leathers - has very kindly donated 50 extremely cool A3 sized posters for us to give away to our forum members over at BatiFans - The Alvaro Bautista Fan Forum.
To find out if you're one of the lucky winners in PART ONE of our great giveaway click here - and if you're not a member, then come and join in! We're a delightful bunch, and we have lots more competitions and giveaways coming up for our members.

PS: Thank you MTECH - we love you!

MTECH Leathers Launches Special "Racing Service"

MTECH, as you may know is a partner to Alvaro Bautista, supplying him with leathers for the 2009 season - and it's with this kind of involvement with the sport globally, that MTECH has this year launched its “Racing Service”.

A truck equipped with all accessories to service the riders is ready on all Road Racing World Championship tracks, starting every Thursday before the race. With this initiative, MTECH has reached its goal of “being” on the tracks with a dedicated service, managed by its qualified technicians.
In this way MTECH ensures that it is always near the riders, that it gives them the best assistance and gets their feedback and tips to continuously improve and increase the garment performance.

The pictures show the "Racing Service" truck, and also a set of Alvaro's MTECH leathers being given attention onsite by MTECH's expert crew.

A Tough Brand Needs A Tough Man

(*Above: Lorenzo Faggionato, Research & Development Product Manager for MTECH on the left, with Alvaro in his new kit)

Further to that news about Alvaro's switch to MTECH leathers, they have sent me this press release which covers off the reasoning behind the taking up of our hero, plus a general potted career history.
Love the last paragraph... :-)

.....................................................................................
Alvaro Bautista has signed a partnership agreement with MTECH for 2009.
The Racer will take part in the 250cc category of the world championships, as official racer for the Aspar Martinez team. He will be wearing one of the NKP number 19 suits, and accessories from the company in Arzignano firm, members of Mastrotto Group.

Alvaro Bautista, born in Talavera della Reina 1984, has been a revelation in 125cc world championship racing. Back in 2004 he stepped up on the podium for coming second at Donington Park. He also found himself on the podium once at Qatar and once at Malaysia.

In 2006 he won the 125cc championship, wearing Aspar’s colours. He had enjoyed a perfect season, winning 8 of the 17 GP races, and stepping up on the podium 14 times.

In 2007 Bautista moved across to the the 250cc category, accompanying team member Alex De Angelis, also riding an Aprilia and wearing Aspar's colours.
He didn’t waste time stealing stardom, winning two races (Italy and Portugal) and stepping up on the podium 5 times, despite having fractured bones during the season, by the end of the season he found himself in fourth position.

For the 2008 season, Alvaro continued on the 250cc with Héctor Faubel, Mapfre Aspar Team racing partner.
He was favourite for the title at the start of the world championships, but a couple of breakdowns put the title out of his grasp.
He finished the season in second position, and in the end, was really the only one, capable of rivaling Marco Simoncelli.

Things are certainly looking up for him in 2009 though, and MTECH have decided to put money on it, well aware that a tough brand needs a tough man, whose energy is based on technique and the determination to aim always higher.
.....................................................................................

Let's hope it's a great relationship between Alvaro and MTECH, and I wonder how much those '19' suits they refer to are going to cost...?
And where can I get one!!!

New Year, New Gear

News from Daily Motos reports that Alvaro has switched from Clover leathers to M-TECH, with photos emerging of him modelling the NKP Racer suit.
The photos also show he's wearing Sidi boots rather than his usual TCX, though it's not mentioned whether there's any change in this respect (although it would be surprising if he modelled a brand he does not normally wear/promote...)

Lid & Livery - A Short Rant

It’s not exactly news that Alvaro has switched helmet suppliers for 2008 (from NZI to Suomy) nor that the new graphic design is different from that on his 2007 lid; these have been covered on various websites (notably, first, on www.batifans.com of course) over the past days. Indeed you can already buy the replica from Suomy and its distributors - I’ve even seen a couple on eBay.
Nonetheless I just fancied wittering on about it for a short while anyway, being a designer by trade and being interested in liveries and branding and all that malarkey.

2008 really represents quite a step-change in Alvaro’s ‘kit’ - far more so than his first season in 250cc. This is largely due to the imposition of the Mapfre branding on the 250cc squad’s bikes and leathers this year. Whilst the 125cc squad retain the blue variant livery (with the secondary flouro colours; magenta for Gabor Talmacsi, yellow for Sergio Gadea and orange for Pere Tutusaus) the 250cc has gone totally red and white for the pre-season testing at Jerez and Valencia.
‘Red and white’ actually means predominantly red, and particularly so on the bike.
I have to admit openly that I much prefer the previous blue/white combos (plus the orange flashing that Alvaro has used). The red and white just looks very cold and corporate by comparison.... who knows, maybe it’ll grow on me - but it hasn’t yet...
And on top of that (literally) is Bati’s new helmet.
Here I’m unequivocally of the opinion that last year’s (and those before it, which seemed to have a kind of evolutionary style about them - you could see the design developing from one year to the next) was hugely better. And here’s why...

I think that crucially there are some stylistic touches that make things look more sleek and aerodynamic - that bring things to life beautifully, and some others that make things look like a brick.
Unsubtle as they were (or *are*... they’re probably still popular in Lincolnshire...) “speed stripes” undeniably added a stylised ‘swoosh’ to the sides of a car, and with it an effect on exaggerating length and emphasising speed and sleekness - and their descendants; various arrows, flames, celtic curves and whatever - have continued to develop that theme for better or worse.
These touches tend to work best when they emphasise the horizontal, when they flow a design along a surface or around a shape.
Alvaro’s 2007 helmet (even though you could argue that some of the design detail may have been overly intricate) was a beautiful example of a graphic design that flowed perfectly across and around the contours and curves of the helmet. It made a functional piece of gear look sculpted and elegant.
If a design does not flow horizontally it is in danger of drawing the eye to a complete halt. Sharp inclines, thick blocks and vertical elements tend to do this spectacularly well. And guess what - Alvaro’s 2008 helmet design (by Bargy Design) does exactly this and, although I can admire the slightly simpler approach to the overall stylings, it feels undeniably blocky and less flowing. It looks less aerodynamic. And even though it includes very modern executions of certain swashes and a (less than successful) reinterpretation of Alvaro’s mischievous devil mascot, it looks decidedly old fashioned and clunky.

I’m sure some people will love it - very probably lots of people; but so far it’s really not growing on me at all, and I do feel it’s a disappointment given how cool Bati’s 2007 lid was.
I’m not convinced of the rightness of making the mischievous devil a lot more sinister either; the take on the devil mascot always having been that it’s not serious in any sense but reflects a kind of naughty side rather than a dark side of Alvaro’s character. While he may have the face of an angel he certainly rides like a little devil.
And don’t we love that :)
But the new graphic treatment seems to take this too seriously and loses any kind of cartoony, fun aspect (and if you think you can’t be both brilliant AND have a cartoon mascot then you’ve clearly never heard of Ayrton Senna).

Anyway - rant over; I’m a grumpy old git and much as I believe Bati should employ me as his brand advisor (and all kinds of other jobs too), this is when all’s said and done, no more than a very subjective little take on the whole lid & livery 2008 subject.
If nothing else I hope it’s been an interesting diversion for a few minutes... ;)

gb

Seeing Red...

One thing that you’d notice immediately in testing photos from Jerez is the ‘striking’ new paint job on Alvaro Bautista’s bike. (Along with matching leathers - well, mostly matching; his gloves still seem to have the orange flashing from last year and have nothing to do with the livery, and he’s also appeared to retain his trademark bright yellow knee sliders).

And when I say ‘striking’ I’m being nice.
I really can’t say I like it at all - and I’m desperately hoping it’s nothing more than some kind of ‘interim’ livery and that come the Team Aspar presentation (mid Feb? it was mid Feb last year...) that we’ll see the good old blue and orange livery.
It’s not that I’m being lazy and can foresee having to repaint my websites at some point - though that IS a possibility - no, my main thing is that I just genuinely don’t rate it as a colour scheme.
It’s interesting to note that although Alvaro’s bike (and Hector Fabuel’s) run the red and white livery, the 125cc pictures I’ve seen show Talma on a bike that’s still running the blue Aspar livery, although with a dash of red here and there.

I like the Aspar blue. Well, the Aspar blues... they actually run two different variants of blue across 125cc (slightly teal) and 250cc (purer darker blue). It looks classy and it stands out. It has a richness that a stark red and white is never going to match.
Also, red bikes remind me of Fortuna - particularly if they’re Aprilias - and they remind me of Marlboro when they’re NOT Aprilias.
As you can see I’m not going to be a happy bunny if they run with the red.
And I’ll certainly be at home to Mr Grumpy if I have to repaint this site, alvarobautista.co.uk and BatiFans.com...

And don’t get me started on that dog-ugly new helmet design!!!