Soheil Ayari: from the 24 Hours of Le Mans to the 24 Hours Moto

 

Photo : Coline DAVID / ACO

 

Soheil, you may be competing in the 24 Hours Moto this year, but what motorsports major player compelled you to one day don leather and take to the track?
"It will seem strange but it was Sébastien Loeb. We got to know each other at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and have been friends ever since. We do not live very far from each other and often race all-terrain bikes. He was the one to drag me to a track one day to roll on a moto. Honestly I went kicking and screaming because I am at circuits all year long but I discovered sensations like I could have never imagined. So I got into it. I took lessons at a school called BMC and I got better. I participated in a small race, a champion bike race with Seb (Sébastien Loeb) where I got noticed by Aprilia who proposed that I become part of a driver line-up and eventually race at the 24 Hours Moto. It is not certain in any case that I will be there for the event (pre-Le Mans and race)."

You will be there at least for qualifying as fourth driver. It would be a great achievement because if you place, you would become the first driver in history to race in the same season at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a car and the 24 Hours Moto on a bike. It has never been done.
"It is clear it would be a first, but if I'm doing it it's for pure passion, it isn't for any novelty or any scoop. I am in love with cars but also motos. I started little by little so it's a passion that I have always had. It would be more an extraordinary discovery for me. And I've already done the Le Mans classic so I will have done it all (laughs)."

We are going to breakdown the Bugatti experience. Imagine ideal conditions, meaning a dry track. What are the big differences on the track behind the wheel and at the handlebars?
"Trajectories can seem the same but in fact they are not. One enters much later into a turn on a bike than a car and then the driving technique changes quite a bit. There are really three separate phases for a moto: braking, turning and reaccelerating, whereas for a car they all go together: you brake and turn and have barely finished braking before turning again and reaccelerating. There are plenty of changes and I have a lot of bad habits in a car that are reflected in my driving a bike and that I have a hard time overcoming. So every time I take a lesson with my teachers, they admonish me saying 'you cross too much, you cross too much, you're going to fall, be careful' !"

In terms of  sensations, does one have more at the handlebars or behind the wheel?
"They are completely different sensations, even if you're on the same circuit, even if it's still about speed. To become one with one's bike and to be harnessed into one's car are very different feelings and really do not compare. The only thing I can tell you is that these two sensations are vital to my well-being. I believe one takes more risks on a moto in the sense that when there is a fall, it's the body that is directly impacted. But as far as a serious risk level, I'm not sure it is less dangerous in a car."

The name of one idol moto racer off the top of your head, who would it be?
"Valentino Rossi above all. And before him I was a huge fan of Doohan (Mick Doohan, quintuple Moto GP world champion from 1994 to 1998). And I believe there for real human talent on the track which has been getting bigger, Marc Marquez: this small man is really amazing."

Interview by Bruno VANDESTICK & Coline DAVID / ACO - Translation by Nikki Ehrhardt / ACO