Part of Suzuki's success in MotoGP is due to the different way it did things and, above all, how communication was done between the team engineers and the engineers at headquarters in Japan.
'Suzuki was a different manufacturer from the other japanese. When we built this project we had that in mind, this beginning of a change of mentality, and it worked. An example of this is at least twice a year our italian engineers would go to Japan to explain their point of view regarding certain problems encountered on track. Obviously they didn't go there to give orders, but to explain, in our opinion, what is best for the bike, not only for the current year but also for the next year. Basically they would say 'we need this' and the japanese engineers in the racing department would study the situation and the data we gave them. At first they were sceptical, but then they became the ones who would always ask us about the data we had and use it frequently. Of course, at the time they did what they thought was best, but we managed to pass information to them that under normal conditions it was difficult for them to access. And slowly we improved until we won in 2020... and we didn't have the budget that the others always had. Let's just say we were never that typically old-fashioned team' , the former Suzuki Team Manager told quoted on slick-maganize.com, he who won the world title with Joan Mir.
The italian manager then gave examples of how the team worked, revealing it was absolutely crucial to adapt the way to communicate between riders and engineers and, above all, between the european engineers and the japanese:
- I will try to exemplify even though I am not an engineer. In an old-fashioned team the rider says: 'Our bike doesn't brake like the Ducati'. And the team says to the japanese engineer: 'We have to improve the braking'. Right, and then what happens? It's not explained how to do things, so the engineer has a problem to solve but without certain information that would be useful for him to work with. He has to look at the nature of the problem and wait for the team to work as usual. But it's very different to go up to the engineer and say: 'We did a comparison with the Ducati, and based on our data and analysis, we saw that it brakes on average seven metres further ahead'. And we can prove what we're saying with the information we've collected. We can explain, for example: 'We believe that they have this technical difference that is helping them, but we have to compensate somehow...', In other words, by talking like this it is easier to understand the problems and solve them. But to make speeches like those required we have to have the support of a high-level analyst and engineer, people who understand them and know how to explain themselves.