Marco Maddii of the Maddii Honda team takes his riders to the opening European race of the season in Sardinia next weekend and the men from the Italian International caught up with the Italian team manager.

Q: We are at the start of the 2026 motocross season and your team is lining up with a new structure. How are you approaching this adventure?

Maddii: Yes, a new adventure, a new class. We are back working with young riders, we are very motivated, and we really like the project. We’re looking pretty good, but obviously this is just the beginning of this new project, so we’ll need some time to grow and improve. We’re currently working on developing both the engines and the suspension, so we don’t expect to be at the top in these two races, but it will be an important test to understand more or less where we are.

Winter training went pretty well for everyone. We will be present with three riders, although one, Escandel, will be missing because he is recovering from an injury. But yes, we are looking pretty good. Expectations are high for the season with Rossi and Alvisi, but also with Escande and Mannini, so the potential is there, and our goal will be to get the most out of these riders. If we succeed, we will certainly be able to achieve important results.”

For years, Team Maddii Racing has been a leading team in MX, let’s say “following in the family footsteps”; what drives you to always give your best and find the motivation to invest more and more in this sport?

“Well, I’m definitely driven by the passion and pleasure of doing this job, which I’ve always loved. I experienced it as a child when my dad was more personally involved in the team. So basically, I really like it. I like this sport because I’ve been doing it all my life, and I also really like the role I’ve had in recent years. So what push me is definitely the passion and pleasure of doing this job, which involves and gives me a lot of satisfaction, and, well, I can’t imagine doing anything else. So for me, it’s a motivation to try to improve and grow our organization, and that’s definitely what drives me, but also the goal of making our team a global benchmark in the future. So, of course, the goal of growth is always there, and there’s a lot to do, and there’s no shortage of motivation.”

Can you give us some advice on how you prepare your athletes for the first races of a season that promises to be very interesting and demanding in every respect?

“Winter training is when you lay the foundations on which to build; the weather doesn’t help in Italy and when it’s bad it’s not easy to work, so you do basic training, with long runs, where you focus more on endurance. At the moment we haven’t worked much on speed, we’ve mainly worked on starts and endurance. The goal was to ride on difficult tracks and in all conditions. So we rode on mud, sand, and potholes. We really did everything this winter, and it was a great experience for everyone.

Now that we’re getting closer to the races, we’re obviously starting to work more on speed, working even harder on starts. And also in terms of physical fitness, they’ve done a great job of strengthening, especially with strength-based training in the gym, because we develop endurance more on the bike. In the gym, we work not only on strength, but also on agility, balance, and dexterity. These are the basics of our winter training.”

The motocross market remains stable and healthy. As one of the youngest managers, what do you think can be done to bring the public to the track? Social media is important, but perhaps you can’t feel the same energy from a screen as you do live. What would be your recommendation?

“But I think one of the flaws of our sport is that we’ve fallen a bit behind in terms of facilities, in the sense that the reception at the tracks is often not the best, and this puts people off a bit. So we need to work on improving the reception at a global level too. In my opinion, this is an area where we’re still struggling: the paddocks, the bathrooms, the services, the restaurants… In short, you often find yourself in facilities that are a bit inadequate, and this is a bit of a problem.

Another thing that I think is lacking is the quality of the TV coverage and how the races are broadcast. Certainly in that direction, by investing more money (while understanding that it is a budget issue), I think there is a lot to be done in terms of image quality. Much could be done better, much higher quality images could be provided, but this goes hand in hand with the level of our sport, in the sense that if we are unable to attract major sponsors, promoters will clearly find it difficult to invest a lot of money in television. It’s a vicious circle that we can’t escape unless we break it. But I think the first step is definitely to improve the facilities at the tracks.”

The Italian Internationals are a regular fixture in the motocross calendar. What do you think is important in these early races: are they more important for the riders or for the teams?

“The Internationals are very important for everyone, both riders and teams, because after a winter of training, it’s essential to do a few races before the World Championship. So, for the riders and teams, it is essential to do these races to get a feel for the level, to understand the problems, to know where there is still work to be done. Even for the mechanics, it is a fundamental start to get into the rhythm of the race. So, they are fundamental events that, in our opinion, cannot be missed. In fact, we have always done them and have always been present.”