Italy has become familiar with ownership of Grand Prix motocross in the last half a decade thanks to Tony Cairoli’s hegemony in MXGP and Kiara Fontanesi keeping a tight and often dramatic grip on the FIM Women’s World Championship. The twenty-two year old from Parma has accumulated four titles in a row and is traversing a new chapter of her career, free (or poorly handled and sidelined) from Yamaha and as an independent co-team owner/athlete.
Easy company, quick to smile and revealing her femininity in what is a very male-orientated sporting pastime through little details like her hair colour or style or elaborately painted nails, Kiara talks in heavily accented English but with a high degree of thought for her answers. It is something of a contrast to our first interview when she was an eager sixteen year old and just starting to shine in Grand Prix – arguably the highest level for female motocrossers – where we needed the help of a translator.
With four FIM World Championships – and those in 2014 and 2015 won at the very last race – Fontanesi has arrived, ruled, surprised and taken profit of her discipline. Her profile and success also led to personal happiness with a link-up through social media to factory MotoGP star Maverick Viñales and the Italian is now almost a year into a relationship with the Spaniard. X Games acclaim and a multiple event winner in the American AMA series means that Fontanesi has been perched for a while at the very highest rung of the female motocross steps.
Her surprising treatment by Yamaha at the end of 2015 meant the dissolution of a long-term association with ‘blue’ and a new adventure in 2016. She has been tasting some of racing’s harsher fortunes this season but the Grand Prix of Lombardia at Mantova this weekend is an authentic home fixture and the meeting that ‘8’ has been waiting for since she launched into WMX with a surprising podium finish at Lierop on a two-stroke at the last outing of 2009.
Mantova may be firmly in her sights in the coming days but Kiara has almost nothing to prove anywhere else in the sport. “I have ‘two sides’ and on one I already achieved what I wanted to do in my life,” she muses. “My first goal was to be able to race in the world championship…and finally I became world champion four times! I don’t think anybody could ask for more. So I was content in one aspect. On the other side is what you feel inside and I guess what makes you succeed; that feeling that if you do something then it’s to be first and the best – not to be second. I had a new adventure this year and there was new motivation to win with the new bike.”
At seven rounds WMX is quite a short championship it still must be tiring due to the competitiveness that means it has gone down to the final round for the title for the last two years…
For sure it was much more tough to win last year than the first two! I got injured just before the last round in the second season but it was still nothing compared to the last two. It was tough but I think the strongest point I have is the mental side and those final races were proof. If you are not strong then you can feel the pressure and lose the championship very easily. I’m lucky to have a really good team behind me and they work all year to put things in there place and keep pressure away and not on me. Two years ago I was struggling a lot with the bike and my head. My body, potential and confidence was not going together-
Why?
Because of some problems I had during the season my head just went. I was doing the best lap-time during practice but couldn’t push through the race because I was just giving up. Finally I could get over it and won the championship. In 2015 I had more experience and was the season where I was feeling my best with the bike and every other aspect. I remember crashing in England – and we still don’t understand how it happened – and we thought the championship was gone. That was normal; when there is just two of you fighting for it and you end up being sixteen points behind with four motos to go. In every race I ‘went for it’ and came as close as I could. Finally everything came down to Loket [Czech Republic] again and it was not easy to handle. Sometimes you also need luck. I had bad luck in England but good luck in Loket [her rival Livia Lancelot could not start the final outing with a bike problem].
After winning a fourth title was there a period where you thought ‘what else can I do?’
After the European of Nations I stopped riding completely; perhaps only three times before January. It was a really big gap but after what happened with Yamaha I did not have the feeling or motivation to go out and ride that bike and especially when I knew that in the new year I’d have to get a new one ready.
Was that difficult?
It wasn’t because I went to see Maverick at a few races and my head was in another place. We then went on holiday and tied up plans for the team in December. I got myself back into work in January and then there was a lot to do.
So there was no temptation to try and conquer America?
Well, I did the last National there last year and when I travelled I saw that it [the series] was not like it was before. Honestly, if it remains at that level then I don’t want to go back. We had a free practice without transponder or anything – like an amateur – and you don’t know how you are getting on. The level [of the competition] is not bad. There are some girls that are quick but not like the top ones here [in WMX]. I rode with a standard bike and suspension because mine was lost at the airport and I won. I could not win a championship with that package here. The level is quite low compared to here and the [standard of] championship as well. I don’t want to go back any more until they improve it.
But what about the chance to be AMA and World Champion? That would be the dream set…
That was part of my plan and I had a two-year schedule. I was going to do the Grand Prix of Thailand in 2015 and then fly to the U.S. to do the first rounds but it was not feasible in the end and it was not possible to mix the championships.
Has interest in you and the championship gone up or down? Do you find it easier or harder to attract more attention and sponsors?
From the beginning until now it has always been pretty good. Every year something has always improved and honestly we are really happy to have made everything ourselves this year. It was a big chance to group a lot of sponsors, and a lot of people contacted us to help, like the support direct from GET – which I never had. When I was in Yamaha I’m sure people thought I was in ‘glass bowl’ and couldn’t be touched because I had ‘everything’. When they knew we were going on our own we had a lot of enquiries. So I think there is still interest in me.
When we last spoke in December you were keen to run a production bike without any factory backing…
When I was with Yamaha it was something sure, something guaranteed. We never broke any engine. Now we are discovering a lot more new things. We prefer to be riding standard parts and set-up at the moment to minimise risk. The support from [electronic specialists] GET meant that the bike improved a lot and is enough for what we need already this year. I thought that the bike helps me quite a lot with my riding but I also knew that we missed a lot of time and experience with it. I find that the Honda is much easier to ride and feels lighter than the Yamaha. It is smoother to change direction and to turn. We have more ‘things’ that we didn’t have before like traction control and launch control and that helps a lot.
You are one of the few athletes running out of their own team at the top level in motorsport. Does that involve a lot of management and decision-making or do you have someone taking care of this side of it?
I’m really lucky with this because the team is not just ‘mine’; it’s also my family’s. My brother [Luca] is helping even more than previous years and nothing has really changed for me even though the team has changed quite a lot. I am still focussing totally on training because the other side goes to my brother and my Dad.
So are you ‘the boss’ or ‘the rider’?!
I’m the rider! It is difficult because everyone is the boss. The team is my Dad’s…but it exists because of me. So if I say: “this is not good…” then we need a solution. It is a family team where everyone has a part and a say. I go along with a lot of what my Dad decides because he has always looked out for me.
You are still so young and you have achieved so much, so how much longer can you think about racing?
It is really difficult to say. I was talking to my trainer about this. I’m used to focussing on the next race and the next championship and never really thinking about records or statistics or how many years I will go on. At the end of each year we always sit around the table and look at what went right and what went wrong. If we are happy or not and what I want to do the next year. That’s what we did in 2015 and we decided to be in the world championship again for 2016. Next year I don’t know…but I think as long as I am having fun on the bike then I will ride. Having said that I don’t think it will be too much because I don’t want to be one of these girls that lives her whole life on the bike and I have always said this to my parents. I have already got what I wanted and that was to be world champion. I don’t want to be like Livia [Lancelot] and still be racing when I am twenty-eight. I can say for sure I won’t be in Grand Prix at that age!
Sure?!
I’m sure!
Do you feel like a World Champion? Like young girls are looking up to you? Like people recognise you on the street? That your career is where you dreamt it would be?
Honestly I feel the same as I did ten years ago because my character has always been the same: everything I do I want to win and do my best. It was like this at school, at gymnastics and finally at motocross. I did not ‘expect’ to win a race, to win a championship and for sure to win four. I’m really happy with what I reached in these many years racing because it has already been eight in the world championship. I feel older than I am! This sport makes you grow up quickly and even more when you need to fight for a title and when you find yourself all alone in some situations. Even if you have a team behind you, you are still in the gate alone. It makes you ‘harder’. And when you have to start a last race to decide a championship then this also has an effect.
So if I said to you “2016 is your last season…” would you be frustrated or would you think ‘that’s OK’…?
I would say “that’s OK; I did it all”. I’m a person who wants to enjoy life and in my head I have many other things that I want to do that I cannot because I am racing.
Such as?
[Shyly] I’d like to do the Olympics on a snowboard. This is a big passion for me and I have always liked the mountains and wintersports. I’ve always wanted to snowboard but I could not train or take risk-of-injury because of the bikes. When I first had instruction in snowboard for riding and jumping they said to my parents that I had the capacity to do it seriously. It was the same for gymnastics! My parents said: “we have to choose one direction!” and we went for motocross because it was the thing I was a bit more advanced in at that stage. I don’t expect to go snowboarding to win but just to compete at that level would be a dream.
From your current feeling and ability how long will it take to reach that level?
I think – for sure – a person that rides motocross at this level can do anything because the body is prepared for everything and when we make a triple jump then we don’t have the fear to do it. So it is not about fear it is about feeling and the amount of time to perfect technique. We will see.
Lastly tell me a bit about Maverick because it seems an unusual relationship. Not just a boyfriend but a riding partner, training partner and a kindred spirit…How is it to live that day-to-day? To have a romantic dinner one minute and then want to catch and pass him the next day on the track…?
[Smiles] We are together almost a year but it seems like forever. We are already living together in Italy and we go to gym together and ride the bike together. When he is away then maybe it is one or two weeks on the other side of the world but when he is at home then he’s at home. We sleep and wake up together because we have the same lifestyles, the same ‘programmes’. People say that when you spend all day with someone then you can get annoyed, bored or end-up arguing but I always say to him that the good thing about us is that we have the same goals, character and personality and it is like two people are moving together as one. It is really good for me to have him in my personal life but also in my professional life because we push each other and we want to win or do the best times in training. We help each other a lot.
It must be nice to have that common ground and understanding…
Yes, even when we are not home then there is that knowledge of ‘why’ we are apart and then when we are working together then it is for the same goal. We kind-of move forward together…like we are building something. I think it would be impossible to find a similar situation [with someone else]. I don’t feel like I am ‘carrying’ someone by my side. We still have a lot of fun and even in the gym or at the track we are making a lot of jokes and we laugh at each other.
So Davide Brivio [Suzuki MotoGP Team Manager] did not plead for you to train slower so Maverick would not take risks…
[Smiles] I always tell Maverick that if he crashes then I will pay because everyone will think it is my fault!