Ex-Casey Stoner crew chief to head Jack Miller’s MotoGP switch

Casey Stoner’s former factory Ducati and Honda crew chief Cristian Gabbarini will play a key role in Jack Miller’s graduation to the MotoGP world championship in 2015.

Aussie Miller is Honda’s new golden boy after he clinched an unprecedented three-year HRC deal, just five years after he starting competing in road racing.

The Moto3 world championship contender will ride a production Honda RC213V-RS in the LCR Honda squad next season after taking the massive gamble to bypass the combative Moto2 category.

But the 19-year-old has been given a huge boost before even throwing a leg over a MotoGP bike after it was confirmed in Aragon last weekend that highly respected Gabbarini will be his crew chief.

Gabbarini, who began his world championship career with LCR Honda way back in 2003 when he was a data engineer for Stoner, was an instrumental figure behind the now retired Aussie’s MotoGP titles at Ducati in 2007 and Honda in 2011.

Gabbarini’s calming influence and technical skills made him a man in demand for 2015. British rider Scott Redding had made Gabbarini his number one choice to be his crew chief in the new Marc VDS Honda MotoGP squad next season.

And Yamaha had negotiated with Gabbarini about the prospect of him joining Jorge Lorenzo if the Spaniard parted company with his long-serving crew chief Ramon Forcada.

But Gabbarini, who has been leading Honda’s new production Honda RCV1000R Open class project in 2014, will work with Miller as crew chief at LCR.

Lucio Cecchinello told MCN: “Cristian has good knowledge about MotoGP because he has worked with Ducati and Honda and I am proud to say LCR is the team that brought him to the paddock. Apart from being a very good engineer he has the right attitude to interact with a young rider that has potentially a lot of fire in him. Cristian is always calm and the fact he had a brilliant collaboration with Casey tells me he can do the same with Jack.”