Aprilia MotoGP rider Andrea Iannone and his brother Angelo will manage the career of controversial Moto3 rider Romano Fenati from the San Marino Grand Prix.
Fenati was banned from racing until the end of last year after controversially grabbing the brake lever of Forward Racing’s Stefan Manzi during the 2019 edition of the San Marino Moto2 GP at Misano in retaliation to an earlier collision between the pair.
He lost his current seat at the Snipers team, and was stripped of his Forward rider for this year in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
However, the Snipers team offered him a reprieve for this season in its Moto3 squad.
Though struggling for much of the campaign, Fenati sealed victory last month in Austria and is edging closer to a return to the Moto2 class with the Gresini team – whom Iannone rides for in MotoGP – alongside Nicolo Bulega.
Iannone confirms long-time friend Fenati approached him looking for “help” having returned to racing without any backing, and sees “big potential” in the flawed 11-time Moto3 race winner.
“I like Romano, [I’ve known him] from I think [when] Romano was five, six years old and raced with pocket bikes,” Andrea Iannone said.
“I think Romano is a really good talent [but had a] strange history, difficult.
“When [he] came back into this world [championship], he came without people [backing him].
“[He] asked me, in case [it was] possible help him but I said to Romano, ‘I don’t know if it is a good idea because I have many problems [laughs]’. In the end we decided to help him.
“I think my brother is a good man for Romano. Angelo has a really good character, he is calm, intelligent, so I think he will be a good help for Romano.”
He added: “Me and my brother work together, but first of all [looking after Fenati] is the job of my brother.
“My job is [to] ride the bike, I talk with engineers from Aprilia and my brother follows Romano. My brother is dedicated to Romano.
“I think Romano has big potential, he is a real great rider with big talent in my opinion but sometimes he needs a leader. When you are 18-19 years old, it is really easy to lose the way.”
Angelo Iannone has also been helping his brother Andrea during race weekends throughout his career, acting as his manager.