My positions on the Vr46 issue are well known. I have expressed them in a video and several articles or posts. And you can read the main articles here.
Fixers, princes, oilmen and "suspicious" companies: is someone exploiting VR46 and Valentino without their knowledge? New releases do not convince!
Team VR46: Ducati rumors worried about possible cheating. Wednesday a rescue press conference?
VR46: without Arabs or oilers, what's next? More importantly, when? And who pays?
I have many doubts and have documented them all.
Despite the fact that I have, unlike others, explained all my reasons, and perhaps because of that, I have been ignored, then belittled, attacked and insulted. How I could be the obstacle toward a partnership in which every day people believe less and less but do not want to admit it.
I write because of the love I have for motorsports and the fear that some small operator will be harmed by what I believe is a hoax.
I don't know if there are scammers. There is certainly a lot of amateurism and naiveté. The most dangerous ingredients when it comes to money.
Only a naive person does not detect anomalies bordering on the absurd in this whole story and, even more so, in the Prince's latest press conference with a small number of journalists and two staffers.
1) Come mai è stata invitata solo la stampa Italiana?
2) Come mai sono stati invitati solo 7 giornalisti, due solo dei quali, extra settore?
3) Come mai moltissimi siti di motori ad alta visibilità non sono stati inclusi?
4) Come mai non erano presenti, né emissari di Dorna, né di VR46 che pure dovrebbero essere partner dell’iniziativa?
5) Come mai non è stata invitata Ducati nonostante in occasione della presentazione della nuova avventura, la foto è stata fatta con Ezpeleta, Salucci e Dall’Igna?
6) Come mai non è stata organizzata una piattaforma professionale e il governante di uno stato si è connesso ad una app pubblica, con tutti i pericoli del caso?
7) Come mai non è stato indicato alcun advisor per l’operazione, né tantomeno una banca garante, oltre agli studi legali delle due parti, cosa obbligatoria?
8) come mai SKY, che aveva due giornalisti presenti, da settimane non nomina nemmeno più Tanal?
9) Come mai SKY che fa 8 post al giorno su Rossi, da giorni non nomina più alcun principe dopo che per settimane non ha parlato d’altro e ha aspettato 3 giorni per fare un post sulla conferenza?
The idea we got was that the press conference served to show that there is a prince. Because this thing had been questioned and because, according to some, it would be enough to show a person in a robe to legitimize everything. Because after all, in the wake of the other statements, they thought that just as it was to be considered impossible for all these initiatives to be doubted, it would be equally impossible to be able to doubt a prince after seeing him, albeit in the grainy mode of a poorly organized conference call.
Instead, according to the writer, and unfortunately according to really few others (only Massimo Calandri of Repubblica expressed marked misgivings), it did not go very well.
The people who "ran" the conference do not have the credibility needed for an operation of the level they want people to believe they have.
"Before the prince enters," began Architect Bernardini (who is not an architect), getting the first of a few conjunctives wrong in his opening. An architect who speaks French poorly, English almost not at all, and gets Latin quotations wrong (the Errata "Corrìgge" requested on the phone still rumbles in my head) and Italian subjunctives wrong. One who confuses Overseas with Oversize already speaks volumes.
Per non parlare della Head of Press and Communication Tanal Entertainment, Arianna Pasquale, che non sa il francese e soprattutto ha un livello di inglese da bambino, non conoscendo la differenza fra questions e answers, coniugando frasi mischiando lingue diverse come Salvatore ne Il nome della Rosa.
E’ il primo Head of Press and Communication che non parla le due lingue delle entità che rappresenta e che non ha alcuna esperienza di conunicazione e relazioni pubbliche internazionali, dato che non esiste nessuna traccia della sua attività in merito. Del resto nei comunicati non c’è un suo contatto personale, quindi almeno non dovrà rispondere ai giornalisti come invece dovrebbe fare chi ricopre il suo ruolo. Meglio così, perché in conferenza stampa la performance è ben al di sotto degli standard di una piccola Pro Loco.
On the prince, doubts grow. He doesn't look much like the one in Wikipedia and, more importantly, despite having studied in the UK, so the encyclopedia says, he speaks English poorly. The French, on the other hand, is that of the North Africans who used to come and buy boats and engines from my grandfather, a fishing boat broker in Molfetta, who used to introduce me to these characters who, when they go abroad, dress up as Arabs to have more credibility, but are instead Maghrebi.
Some connection with the Korean Moroccan Holding Group also run by Bernardini would come naturally, but let's leave it at that, as there are far greater doubts.
The background of the press conference, of which we have managed to get both audio and video and are proving it to you with details, may be that of the summer residence, but we an austerity of this level we have not seen even in a massage parlor (don't ask us where this analogy comes from).
Does anyone tell us that this gentleman, with a mini PC on his lap (he has no conference hall screen), who is supposed to be a graduate of a prestigious European university with a past as a minister is the real prince? All right. At this point we are sorry that he is letting his representative answer the questions. And that he either doesn't know the numbers of his initiatives or shoots them off the top of his head (the figures reported are at the level of Microsoft, Google and Facebook). Not to mention Tanal who obviously does everything while being nowhere, proof of nothing.
The head of a private fund that is about to spend a billion openly declares that they made a mistake in setting up the operation that should be communicated first in Saudi Arabia than abroad. They would like to build cities, parks, racetracks, cars and motorcycles, but they do not know that communiqués should be issued internally first. Yet in the Saudi press NOTHING EXISTS ABOUT TANAL'S ACTIVITIES. Tanal is never mentioned except when talking about a neighborhood of houses in Rhyad. Amateurism.
Tanal does not exist except in communiqués bounced around on the two-wheeler sites and elsewhere, which published everything they received, without ever verifying it, and making it superficially credible thanks to a link popularity in which they were complicit.
Who knows why, on the other hand, at the same time, another private Saudi fund, PIF, acquired Pagani Automobili without warning anyone at all, yet communicating, when it was done, shareholders (complete with % details), banks involved, board of advisors, law firms and corporate offices.
So on the one hand we have UBS Investment Bank as Pagani's exclusive financial advisor, Withers Studio Legale as legal advisor to the selling shareholders, Rothschild & Co and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer as financial advisors and legal advisors to the fund.
On the other hand, we have Bernardini, Arianna Pasquale, who has no experience in communications with international agencies, Uccio Salucci, Alberto Tebaldi, and Giampiero Sacchi, team manager of the bankrupt Ioda Racing who accompanied them all to Carmelo Ezpeleta.
Neither is a guarantor bank or lawyers. Almost the same.
There is talk of 18 million for 5 years and it is not clear who, how, when and by what means will pay.
I bought cars with more paperwork and people involved.
To the timid questions, the trio raises again and displaces with a hypothetical sponsorship, also for Dorna. It is one of the clichés that has been going on since April.
The plans laid out in the clumsiest press conference of all time, with journalists afraid to do their jobs lest they discover something they don't like and lecturers left galloping in the pastures of fantasy, are the same as the surreal releases already issued in the past.
The ones that had alerted us, to be clear. And now more details further alarm us.
Prendete carta e penna per fare il conto.
I parchi diventano un investimento da 300 milioni.
Le città sono più di una, con quella che vede impegnato il solo Principe, Fantastic City, a costare, da sola, 75 miliardi.
200 million is for car and motorcycle factories. Cars and motorcycles that, perhaps the prince does not know, would become the first case of automotive production in Arab countries.
And the prince does not wonder why there is no precedent for this. But the prince's family, moderate motorcyclists who used to race but now go slow, "has been importing Moto Guzzis, Ferraris, Autobianchi and Lancias to Saudi Arabia for years." A gluttonous detail to be written in the newspapers, which is therefore necessarily likely and yet not true, because Autobianchi and Lancia in Saudi Arabia have never been imported, and Ferraris come from the Emirates where the importer is Al Tayer. Go ahead and explain this one to us as well.
For that matter, given the little resistance of cross-examination, even on the Aramco issue, which is dismissed with "we said we weren't talking about it," the revival has been freewheeling.
The interest in motorsports of previous releases and statements becomes, during the press conference, the purchase of the Modena circuit in addition to the construction of a test track in Saudi Arabia.
The love of motorsport, becomes the purchase of an F1 team, but without specifying what that might be.
Per non parlare della costruzione (finalmente) di un circuito in Arabia Saudita per poter poi organizzare (finalmente) un GP nel paese, dimenticando che un circuito, in Arabia Saudita c’è già, a Jeddah, e lo ha costruito Tilke, che è architetto davvero. E c’è anche già un Grand Prix, previsto dal 3 al 5 dicembre di quest’anno. Altro che gli eventi Tanal che non si fanno mai.
L’account della Formula1 ha pubblicato già una simulazione di gara con le 27 curve della pista, il 18 marzo. Lo hanno visto in 600mila ma non il trio di press conferenzieri.
Questi signori, insomma, credono di essere pionieri di una cosa che esiste già da un po’. E nessuno dei giornalisti di motori presenti (alcuni direttori di testata) , fra SKY, Gazzetta dello Sport, GPOne, Motosprint, fa una piega a riguardo. Mio padre, però, che ha 76anni e non naviga su Internet, lo sa. Lo ha letto su Il Mesaggero.
E via così anche per tutto il resto.
Rilanciato il Fantastic Trophy, che per essere un progetto che parte a settembre è leggermente in ritardo, non essendo stata ancora costruita la moto con cui si deve correre, mentre le mongolfiere che avrebbero dovuto seguire la manifestazione, prendono vita e si trasformano, secondo Bernardini, in un evento internazionale:
"The organization of an international hot air balloon championship called the Ambassador Cup that in the various press releases was never announced because in the last two months we have read all about it," says the architect.
We read them, but someone wrote them down.
Not to mention that the Balloon Ambassador Cup, to be held, we imagine, in Umbria, already exists under another name.
It is called the Sagrantino Cup, has been held in Todi since 34 Lanni, and is organized by British aeronaut Ralph Shaw.
The photos shown at the press conference are taken right from the Umbro event website. I wonder what Shaw thinks of it.
This fixation on Umbria and on borrowing, making them one's own, from projects that already exist is a leitmotif we have reported on before.
On a venue, an idea, an event, you put the Tanal brand, Photoshop is fine, and launch into the future. The list is long. Newspapers write confidently, and the media tamtam is created that determines a credibility with which to present oneself.
But sooner or later it has to be paid.
The money is expected on Wednesday, so we will see if it is all as they say, despite the ministerial traffic light system that has been postponing for months the agreement that is declared as signed but without any handouts (another mystery).
But even if the money were real, someone has to explain why all these false credentials, bogus locations, projects that do not exist, made-up numbers and a Prince who is not informed about anything he is about to invest in, assisted by a structure that, in practice, does not exist and does not resemble anything that is put up in these cases.
And in any case, it is not true that if the money comes in everything is fine.
In the first place there must be transparency and traceability.
If not, we could partner with anyone, including states that continually violate human rights at every level.
But maybe this someone is already willing to do that.
And they like the idea so much that nothing else matters and everything seems normal.
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