Lucia Gabani: Press Officer at Prima Pramac Yamaha

Lucia Gabani was just a child watching MotoGP on TV when she realized motorsport was more than a Sunday pastime, it was the path she wanted to follow. Growing up in the same region of Italy as Valentino Rossi meant that racing was part of the local fabric. In her family, Sundays often revolved around the Grand Prix. “Since I was a child I’ve always been interested in motorsport, MotoGP, because at home everyone was watching it,” Gabani recalls. That early immersion planted a dream: if others from her town could make it in the MotoGP world, why not her?

By her mid-teens, Gabani wasn’t content to remain just a fan. At 16 years old, she created her own motorsport blog to turn passion into practice. It was the late 2000s, the dawn of social media, and she taught herself the basics of running a website from scratch. “I opened a blog because I started to understand that the communication field was the one I liked the most.” With no ready-made opportunities in a racing team at that age, Gabani learned about SEO, web design and content management by maintaining her blog, writing race recaps and opinion pieces. In university, she deepened her skill set, studying sociology first and then journalism to get “a proper preparation” in how professional media is done. This formal education reinforced what she had learned on her own: telling the story of the sport would be her way into MotoGP.

Gabani’s break came through persistence and a bit of bold networking. As a journalism student, she was required to complete internships, and she set her sights firmly on Dorna Sports, the commercial rights holder of MotoGP. “I wanted to get more focused on motorsport,” she says, describing how she used LinkedIn to contact people at Dorna and secured an internship in Barcelona. That first stint opened the door. In 2015, not long after, Dorna brought her back to work on the MotoGP website content team. Gabani also gained experience in broadcasting during this period, spending time with Sky’s MotoGP channel in Italy. But it was at Dorna’s media division where she really grew professionally, by embracing a wide array of roles.

One of Gabani’s defining traits is curiosity, a drive to understand every side of the motorsport media operation. Once she had gotten comfortable writing news for the MotoGP website, she didn’t stay in that comfort zone for long. “Once I had under control the website, I wanted to do something different, to know better the company,” she says. In 2019, when Dorna launched MotoE (an all-electric support class to MotoGP), Gabani jumped at the opportunity to be part of it starting from 2022. It was a small, start-up style project within the larger MotoGP ecosystem, and Gabani became the in-house journalist handling MotoE coverage. “That was a great opportunity because I was the only journalist of the company fully working on it,” she notes.

Being the sole reporter for a nascent world cup meant her responsibilities stretched beyond just writing race reports. She found herself creating content in collaboration with sponsors and technical partners. “I wasn’t only in charge of the content itself, but also to create content for, for example, Michelin, for Ducati... explaining what this company is doing,” Gabani explains, describing how she produced stories that highlighted the contributions of MotoE’s key partners. This experience taught her how to weave marketing and storytelling together in an authentic way, a skill that would prove invaluable later on.

Above all, those early years at Dorna gave Gabani a holistic understanding of motorsport communication. She had written articles, helped produce TV segments, and even dabbled in radio; a 360-degree media education. Looking back, she believes this breadth of experience is a major asset in her current role. “Know how a TV works, know how a website works, know how a radio works. It is extremely important to be a PR and press officer in a team, because I know what kind of need each kind of journalist has,” she says. Understanding the perspective of a broadcaster versus a print journalist, for example, allows her to anticipate their requests and deliver what they need. It’s a form of empathy she carries into every press interaction: having been on the media side herself, she can bridge the gap between the paddock and the press room with ease.

After spending time honing her craft at Dorna, Gabani was ready for a new challenge. It came in early 2024 with a phone call that would change her life: Gino Borsoi, the team director of Prima Pramac Racing, was on the line offering her a job. Pramac, one of MotoGP’s leading independent teams, needed a press officer. For Gabani, the timing was right to move from the organizer’s side to a team itself, even if it meant uncharted territory. “I got a call in January... where he asked me if I was interested,” she remembers. “I knew that I was joining a team who had just won the MotoGP team world championship,” Gabani says of that moment. Pramac had indeed just clinched the 2023 Teams’ Championship title, and with riders Franco Morbidelli and Jorge Martín they were poised for strong 2024 season. Stepping into such a successful garage brought pressure to perform from day one. “The expectations were really high... but that was the most exciting part of the deal.”

Nothing, however, could fully prepare Gabani for the intensity of working trackside for a MotoGP team. “I’d never worked for a team before, so I had no idea what to expect... it was much more [than I imagined],” she admits. Suddenly, she was inside the story she used to cover. Every race weekend became an all-consuming whirlwind of logistics and emotions.

In 2024, Jorge Martín emerged as a title contender once again, and the Pramac squad was fighting for victories nearly every round. Gabani was not just coordinating media duties; she was living the championship chase alongside mechanics, engineers, and riders. The stakes were high, and she could feel it in the pit of her stomach. “Of course, there were moments of tension, moments of adrenaline. You feel something here in your stomach, you cannot breathe really well,” she says of the atmosphere in the garage during those pressure-cooker races. In those moments, the team would rally together. Whenever nerves threatened to overwhelm one person, someone else would squeeze their shoulder and say, “keep calm, keep the focus.” Gabani saw firsthand how a close-knit team balances intensity with support.

As the title fight went down to the wire, Gabani found herself as emotionally invested as anyone. She learned that being a team press officer means riding the emotional rollercoaster too. “I realized... it wasn’t just the people who work there, it’s all the people around,” she says about the broader impact of a championship campaign. Families back home were hanging on every race, sending messages of encouragement. In fact, Gabani’s own family and friends were so excited for her and the team that she had to set boundaries to cope with the nerves.

She laughs as she recounts instructing her loved ones not to send any “good luck” texts on race weekends. “I told my boyfriend, to my family, ‘Don’t ask and don’t say anything to me until Sunday afternoon,’” she recalls, half-joking, half-serious in wanting to block out distractions during the tensest final races. It was all worth it in the end. Though Martín narrowly missed the riders’ title in 2023, the season laid the groundwork for future triumphs and taught Gabani how resilient a team has to be to reach the top.

The hard work of Gabani and the rest of the Pramac team materialised in the last race of the 2024 season, when Jorge Martín clinched the MotoGP World Championship – a historic riders’ title for an independent team. Naturally, Gabani was central to organising the unforgettable celebration that followed. Weeks earlier, as Martín edged closer to the crown, she and two colleagues began planning a surprise, just in case. Only the team coordinator and communications manager joined her on the covert project. “We didn’t say anything to anyone, first of all because we wanted to keep a surprise, and secondly because many of them were superstitious,” Gabani explains. Preparing a victory before it was secured was a gamble, but with the trust of Pramac’s leadership and Martín’s manager, the trio pressed ahead.

They settled on a Terminator-inspired theme, playing off Martín’s nickname “The Martinator,” complete with props, lighting and music. Gabani handled everything from coordination to budget, liaising with Dorna’s production crews and sponsors. “We had everything about coordination, organization, budget, everything on the three of us... and we worked as one,” she says. Red Bull also lent support and equipment, but the planning group remained small and united. Managing the moving parts in secret was demanding, yet when Martín crossed the line as champion, the effort paid off. On track at the Solidarity GP, the spectacle unfolded: smoke, lasers, and Martín donning a Terminator mask before smashing open a display to reveal a golden helmet. “It’s not that easy to coordinate so many people, but in the end, we did it. And I think the final result was great,” Gabani says.

Amid all this excitement, 2025 also brought a significant change to Gabani’s day-to-day work. Prima Pramac Racing switched manufacturers at the end of 2024, ending its long partnership with Ducati to become Yamaha’s satellite team. For Gabani, this meant adjusting to a different corporate culture and communication style. “In Ducati, we were more independent... each team has its own communication team and its own workflow,” she explains. With Yamaha, collaboration became much closer. “Now, with Yamaha, it’s still a work in progress... we are basically the second factory team,” she says. From January 1, 2025, everything from newsletters to social media graphics was brought in line with Yamaha’s established systems. “For example, from the newsletter, we had a different system... we got the same system that Yamaha already has. Also the font is the same,” Gabani notes, pointing out how even the smallest details were unified.

The change also shifted the rhythm of her working week. “With Ducati, for example, there were more activities on track. With Yamaha, we have more activity on the Wednesdays, on the days before the GP,” she says. Yamaha’s approach brought more pre-event commitments, from press calls to city-based fan activations, which required extra coordination with the factory’s own communications staff. It was a more structured environment, with additional layers of alignment. Yet Gabani embraced the challenge. “I’m really glad that I’ve had two years working with two different constructors, because many things change... it’s really challenging and really interesting,” she reflects, highlighting the insight she’s gained from working with both an Italian and a Japanese manufacturer in quick succession.

Through all these transitions, the core of Gabani’s work has stayed constant: serving as the bridge between the team and everyone who depends on it. During a race week, she is the one who ensures that riders, engineers, journalists, and sponsors all have what they need, when they need it. Mondays, while the paddock is already unwinding from the last Grand Prix, are already full for her. She begins by collecting interview requests, confirming availability, and drawing up detailed media schedules for riders and key staff.

As the week progresses, her task becomes balancing these obligations with the team’s own priorities. “My duty is to make sure that any activity they have off the bike is well organized and doesn’t let them lose a second of their time,” she explains. This might mean slotting in a press conference between a technical debrief and a sponsor event, or rearranging commitments on short notice if schedules change. She is constantly in motion, ensuring each transfer happens seamlessly so riders remain focused on performance rather than logistics.

On race days, timing becomes everything. Gabani scouts the entire circuit to learn the fastest routes from the media center to the TV pen to the podium, calculating how long each transition will take. “I have to know really well where to go... the quickest way,” she says, acknowledging that, unlike the riders, she can’t rely on scooters to navigate the paddock. She often covers more ground on foot than anyone, her presence ensuring that everything happens when and where it should.

Her responsibilities don’t end with scheduling and logistics. Motorsport is international at its core, and Gabani works fluidly across languages and cultures. She might be speaking Italian with a mechanic in one moment, translating for a Spanish journalist in the next, and drafting a press release for Yamaha’s communications team in Japan shortly after. That range is not just practical but essential; her ability to bridge cultures keeps communication flowing no matter the circumstance.

What ties all of this together is the professional calm she brings to an environment that thrives on pressure. Colleagues describe her as someone who can diffuse tension while keeping people on task, a presence that allows the riders and the team to focus fully on racing. It is work that is rarely seen by the public, but without it, the show on track could not run as smoothly as it does.

While thriving in the hectic pace of MotoGP, Gabani also made time to give back to the sport. During her years with Dorna’s media team, she launched an initiative to highlight women working in MotoGP; from engineers and crew chiefs to media officers and beyond. The idea came after a company meeting revealed a striking statistic: the female audience for MotoGP content was extremely low. As someone who was often the only woman in her circle of racing-fan friends, Gabani began to consider what might attract more women to the sport. “I started to ask myself, OK, if I weren’t interested in something like MotoGP, how could I get attracted? Which might be the reason? Well, female stories,” she recalls.

In March 2020, coinciding with International Women’s Day, she launched a new series on the MotoGP website. Each month, on the 8th, an in-depth profile would go online featuring a woman from inside the paddock. “I had the opportunity to meet so many women who’ve been so inspiring for me,” she says, noting how many had spent most of their lives in the paddock yet had never been recognized publicly. These were the technicians, analysts, press officers, and managers whose work was indispensable, but whose names rarely appeared in headlines.

The response was immediate. Inside the paddock, colleagues and even long-time friends learned things they had never known about the women they worked alongside. “The feedback I got from them was fantastic, because the majority of them didn’t do any interview before,” Gabani explains. Many were modest about their careers, unsure of why their stories would matter, only to be met with an outpouring of recognition once the articles were published. Co-workers would tell them, “I never knew that about you,” or “I’ve known you for years and never asked how you got here.”

The series also resonated with fans. Young women wrote in saying they finally saw a place for themselves in MotoGP, inspired by someone who reflected their own experiences. For Gabani, that reaction proved the importance of representation. “We have so many women, but first of all people, that have a massive human value and high commitment with what they do. They’re contributing to make our sport bigger and bigger,” she reflects. To her, telling these stories was a way to make the MotoGP community more inclusive, while pushing toward a future where recognition comes from talent alone. “Talking about a woman’s story in motorsport... shouldn’t be a story anymore, not because she’s a woman, but for the story itself,” she says pointedly.

Having charted her own unconventional path into MotoGP, Gabani is quick to share practical advice with the next generation, especially young women dreaming of a career in racing. “First of all, get informed... figure out what you might like the most, what is more suitable for your interests,” she says. Motorsport is broad, and she believes identifying your passion, whether engineering, communications, marketing, or another field, is the crucial first step. “If numbers are your way, go on the engineering side. If you’re more keen on communication and languages, maybe coordination or journalist might be your field,” she suggests.

From there, it’s about reaching out. “Talk with people, get ready to send so many messages,” she emphasizes. It’s advice she followed herself as a student, unafraid to message professionals on LinkedIn or ask questions, knowing that connections can open doors where a cold resume cannot. But she also stresses balance: “Do not get focused only on motorsport.” Broader experience, she argues, is just as valuable. In her own early career, she wrote for outlets on politics, lifestyle, and television, which gave her confidence and a wider network. Even Formula 1, she points out, now collaborates with fashion and entertainment brands, a reminder that fresh ideas from outside the bubble can reshape the sport.

For Gabani, the bottom line is to stay curious, adaptable, and well-rounded. That mindset carried her from posting about Valentino Rossi online as a teenager to becoming press officer for MotoGP’s leading independent team, guiding them through the spotlight of a historic championship. She has built her career not just through skill, but through a genuine love for the sport and the people who make it.

What makes Gabani remarkable is the way she makes complexity look effortless. From orchestrating a championship celebration to ensuring a rider doesn’t lose a second of focus on race day, she brings precision and warmth in equal measure. Those who work alongside her know that her influence extends far beyond press releases;

it’s in the calm she brings to chaos, the stories she chooses to tell, and the standards she sets.