mutual 5: FORZA FERRARI SEMPRE NO ONE HAS EVER QUALIFIED HIGHER THAN P3 AND P4 WE ARE SO BACK
mutual 6: omffgg;ggg [image of, like, thierry boutsen] the skrunklyyyy look how cute my skrunkle babyyy my cutie pie #mycutiepie
mutual 7: man fuck kimi
mutual 8: ok i promise chapter 3 of my lestappen consolidation-of-Denmark-as-a-Christian-kingdom longfic where charles is harald bluetooth and max is thyre will be out tomorrow!! thanks for your patience :) i decided to translate the jelling stones myself which added a bit of time lol
mutual 9: man fuck kimi
mutual 10: LETS ALL KILL (remembers suicide jokes are bad) KIMI ANTONELLI
(from Riding Sport June 2026 issue; translated from Japanese but (presumably) the original interview would've been in English so any mistakes are my own)
Fully locked into GP mode during race weeks
Ignacio Cabeza (“Nacho”) is Ogura’s assistant. His role is to help ensure everything is in order during the race week. One could say he is the person closest by Ogura’s side during the week.
Nacho has been in the grand prix racing world for many years; formerly as a mechanic, then as Ogura’s assistant since the start of last year. He has previously worked alongside riders known for their difficult personalities, such as Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo. Since last year, Nacho has seemed to enjoy an easier time at work.
“I knew Ai was incredibly talented, but working closely with him like this, I can truly sense how exceptional he is. Ai is a perfect rider. I’ve worked with (riders like) Dani and Lorenzo, so you can trust my word on that.”
His love for solitude during the week
(Riding Sport) got to chat with Nacho, who is freshly back from the US GP, the third round of the season. “Outside of racing, we talk a lot and joke around with each other. But from Wednesday to Sunday, Ai needs to be alone. He prefers being by himself, and doesn’t like to be disturbed. He spends the entire day watching practice session videos, or reviewing footage from old races all on his own.”
“He doesn’t have a motorhome; he stays at a hotel so he can distance himself from the race. What he's looking for is the solitude he needs to maintain his focus.”
“Usually he arrives at the circuit on Tuesday or Wednesday, and heads home on Sunday. In the car on the way to the circuit in the morning, he’s usually asleep and barely says a word. We don’t really see each other much during the day either. I don’t interfere with him; I just focus on my work and make sure everything he needs is in their proper places. At the end of the day, I’ll ask him about practice and the tires. I definitely have to be the one to ask him. Otherwise, sometimes he won’t say anything.”
“When Ai isn’t at the office or the track, he hangs out with the Japanese staff over at Arai Helmets or Kushitani, the Idemitsu crew, also Mario Aji and Furusato (Taiyo). They’re around his age, and are friends he’s raced against his whole life. But other than that, he’s basically on his own.”
“Once Ai gets to the circuit, he usually goes through his routine. First, he’ll hole up in the office, before going to breakfast and then greeting his teammates. It’s always the same. He’s very meticulous that way. Well, we’re pretty similar, so on the first day we pretty much set up the office and arranged everything in the same way. Ai likes everything to be well-organized and orderly.”
“Unlike other riders, Ai’s not really picky about food. He’s fine with eating anything—rice, pasta, meat.”
Ai is always on the bike
“He does a lot of motocross for training, and he also rides 25 HP bikes. When he’s in Japan, he trains around Motegi on 1000CC bikes. He rides a lot—if anything, riding is all he does. He doesn’t train at the gym; he goes running occasionally, but he doesn’t do any cycling. On days when he needs other kinds of training, he does it without complaining.”
“When he started competing in the MotoGP class last year, people told him he should train at the gym to build up his body, but he said, ‘I’m still doing what I’ve always done, and I understand my own body. I know what (my body) needs’. He doesn’t really like weight training. He said, ‘You don’t need to get into that kind of shape in order to ride a bike’. But even if he doesn’t (go to the) gym, it’s like he doesn’t get tired.”
“Ai is extremely intelligent. He fully understands both the positive and negative sides of his own actions, as well as the things that happen to him. When he falls into a slump, it can be really difficult to get him fired back up. For example, if you try to cheer him up right after a crash, you’ll just end up hurting him. He’s more than aware that he’s made a mistake. He’s got a really clear-eyed view of reality and doesn’t allow himself to get lost in daydreams.”
“I’m impressed by it all—his way of thinking, his work ethic, and by Ai as a person. He’s the kind of guy who just stays silent unless he has something to say. Sometimes an Aprilia mechanic will come over and ask, ‘Do you have any comments?’ and Ai will just reply ‘No’. But if a mechanic says something that doesn’t make sense to him, (Ai) will tell it to them straight.”
A star who hates the spotlight
“This season, Ai has been returning to Japan after every race. He rented an apartment in Barcelona last year, but he said he wanted to spend more time in Japan this year. That’s partly because the tracks were [often] closed for some festival or the other when he wanted to ride motocross. So he couldn’t train much in Barcelona.”
“It might be pretty tough for him to travel back and forth constantly, so we’re trying this out for just this year for now. I think he’d rather be in Japan than in Europe.”
“He’s not really the ‘star’ type: he hates going out and he doesn’t enjoy interviews. Even though he says, ‘I’m doing this because it’s what I want to do’, I don’t think he likes the fuss and attention that comes with being a world-class rider. The truth is, he’s got a reserved personality so he struggles with interviews. It’s uncomfortable for him. For example, he hates being asked ‘Which corner did you crash in?’ right after a session where he crashed. It makes him feel like he hasn’t done his job properly, you see.”
(fun fact: the japanese media's nickname for ai is 追い上げの貴公子 which translates roughly to "the young nobleman [nod to his clean riding] of catching up/closing in"; this issue specifically calls him 雑草精神を持つ追い上げの貴公子; 雑草精神 refers to having the tenacity of common/tough weed who refuses to be crushed - charmingly fitting for ai!)
Yeah it hurts but the reason it hurts so much is because he made us dream and it’s because he made us believe and personally I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ll dream for tomorrow too and maybe it won’t amount to anything but how can we do anything but.
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
dededos
2087
theartofmadeline
baratheonpilled
turnnoffyourmind
