ambassadors
Sherco makes some of the best, toughest, most competitive off-road bikes on the market. Earlier this year, the French company partnered with Motul as the official supplier to its racing and production bikes. Jordan Curvalle is the team manager for Sherco racing and talks to us about squeezing a whole season of racing into just a few months, and the difference Motul’s lubricants makes to Sherco’s success.
Jordan, you’re racing manager for Sherco. Is that for a specific team, or across all motorsport?
Yes, for all global motorsport; enduro, trial and rally. I have some managers to help me, like Fabrizio Azzalin, David Casteu, Albert Casanovas. I’m also the test rider for the enduro production bikes. It’s a lot of fun because I get to continue to ride and to try and improve the bikes.
Have you a background in racing?
Yes, I’ve been racing for 15 years in the sport, both in MX, sand race, cross country and the European and world championships in enduro.
As a racer yourself, how important is the choice of lubricant in racing?
For sure, it’s really important in order to win. The competition between the brands and the riders is really close so we need to have the best products to create the best combination to win the race.
Why did you choose Motul’s lubricants?
With Motul, we have a lot of products that really help the rider and the mechanics. It’s the best oil and brake oil system. And also, it’s the collaboration. At the end of September, we had the Sea to Sky, the first extreme race after COVID, and an engineer from Motul was there to help the mechanics with the products. At the Dakar we also experienced the great partnership during the race. This is great as it helps the mechanics to choose the best product and to grow in the sport.
Has racing finished for the year?
We still have a few more competitions; some national enduro and two events of the enduro world championships. Next week we will go to Romania for the Red Bull Romaniacs. And we’ve also got an extreme race in South Africa. But, you know, with COVID it’s been a strange year. Now we have a good schedule until the end of the year and we hope we can do all the races without restriction.
Has COVID proved to be a challenge?
It really has been a challenge. We started the year with some success and race wins. And because of lockdown, we now have to do a whole season in three months. So, we have a lot of races on the same weekend. Two weeks ago, we had three big events on the same weekend, so we have to manage all the riders and the mechanics. For sure, it’s good to come back to racing because the lockdown was hard for everyone. Now, though, we can’t complain because we have too much racing at the same time [laughs].
Sherco has picked up some very memorable wins, from Dakar to world championships. For a company that has only been going two decades, how has it risen to such great successes in motorsport already?
I’ve been with Sherco since 2007. The first enduro bike was in 2004, so we’ve only been doing this for 16 years. This is incredible, because we’ve won some world and national titles, and a lot of popular events. In the beginning, we were a small group of people with a big motivation to make the best bikes we could. And we have worked hard to achieve that. This is the key to our success, to work hard, and have the passion to do that.
Going into 2021, what are your big ambitions for the team and how will you achieve them?
I think we build on our great podium result with Lorenzo Santolino at Rally Andalucia last week and start to think about the next Dakar. With Lorenzo we have a good rider and we hope to make a good result there. And like we always do, we want to push in enduro and trial to win some races and continue in this direction. We have a great team, not just the people racing but at the factory, too. Also, we want to continue to build the best bike we can for our customers. It’s not just enough to win races if the customer doesn’t like our products.
