The thought troubled him Aki Ajon I think it hurts more. Sleeping was not going to be successful, because someone had brought a fan into the hospital room, the hum of which, combined with the noise of the traffic, was tormenting. Due to the exceptional heat of August, the room’s window was kept open at night as well. When the nurses’ eyes were averted, Ajo took her own permission to remove the protective plastic between the sheet and the mattress so that it wouldn’t rub.
A few days earlier, Ajo had fallen violently in the championship race of track motorcycling in Virtasalmi, and the femur and hip of the left leg had been broken in several places. Now the leg was operated on and the pain medication was working, but at the same time, my mind was spinning. He understood that the dream of climbing to the top international level as a road racing driver would never come true. It took a lot.
I’m ready to come and wash the rims, but I have to get in here somehow.
Aki Ajo
27-year-old Ajo’s life had revolved around his own driving career. He had traveled to the hard-fought Virtasalmi competition with his then-common-law wife and 2-year-old Niklas– with his son. The parents had promised Niklas that on the way back from the competition, they would stop at the Visulahti adventure park in Mikkeli.
– After my accident, Niklas came to see me in the ambulance and tearfully said: “Daddy is going to the hospital, he’s not going to Sivulahti.”
Aki Ajo says he remembers that moment in August 1996 well.
He has fewer detailed memories of his hospital stay in Helsinki. While lying in the hospital, however, an idea ripened in his mind, which would offer an escape route from the broken dream.
Just a few months later, Ajo posed for photographers, according to her own words, her cheeks were red from excitement and her crutches were moved aside for a moment at the announcement event of the Ajo Motorsport team in the cafe of Hämeenlinna’s Citymarket. The first years the team competed on asphalt and ice mainly in Finland, but the dream of an international breakthrough did not leave him alone.
Midsummer -99 Ajo left her common-law partner Hanna Hakkarainen with him to watch the MotoGP race in Assen, Holland, and was even more impressed by what he saw.
– I told Hanna that I’m ready to come and wash the rims, but somehow I have to get in here.
People management in your own style
Now, 24 years later, the rays of the Andalusian morning sun seem to shine the brightest on the back door of pit box number 26. Inside the box, Ajo Motorsport staff and Moto2 drivers are preparing for their test day at the Jerez circuit.
Aki Ajo is one of the most respected team managers in the MotoGP pit. Over the years, his drivers have won nine world championships. He has been considered a discoverer and developer of young talents, but in recent years he has also profiled himself as a people leader. He has been described as a motorcycle racing legend. On the other hand, frankness and stubbornness are most often mentioned as character traits.
Acting as the manager of the pit operations of the team Tomas Foncea smiles when I ask him to describe Aki Ajo behind the scenes.
– Often in the morning he makes coffee – Finnish, of course – and maybe has a bit of toast. Then he often sings some Finnish songs. Sometimes he has also sung in Catalan. He doesn’t really care what people think. He is quite amusing.
It’s not long before an imposing hum starts to be heard from the door of the blue-orange maintenance truck:
“The wind brings, the wind takes away, an old memory…”
Team manager Ajo is not sung in front of the camera, however. Not even by asking. So let’s talk about whether his obvious ability to dig out the best skills from drivers is more accumulated by experience or innate?
– I believe it’s from my own parents. Especially my mother is hard to listen to and wants to help everyone. My own nature also includes a certain desire to help.
Ajo’s own workspace in the back of the service truck has been reduced. In addition to the black leather sofa and flat-screen TV, the furniture includes a dark, wood-patterned desk, next to which the team manager fiddles with his laptop, and two small shelves.
They both wear helmets with text written on the visors. Another of the helmets has been heard To Remy Gardner, who won the world championship as a driver for the Ajo team two years ago. Gardner’s message on the visor ends with the words: …”I am forever grateful that you trusted me.”
According to Ajo, Gardner is an example of a driver that many other team managers had already considered a lost promise.
– We may be looking for slightly different drivers than usually other teams. We rarely look for ready-made masters. We strive to ensure that our own stable’s operating methods and know-how have something to offer the driver. Often it is something spiritual.
I guess it’s no coincidence that two years ago Gardner and another Ajon who drove as world champion in the same season protected, Pedro Acostamentioned in their acceptance speeches at the award gala that they were Lucky bastards.
– That’s right. I like to cultivate phrases, of which that is one. I’ve often said to one of our drivers or team members who aren’t having their best day: “Do you remember waking up in the morning and thinking that we’re just pretty lucky bastards to do this kind of work.” You have to remind yourself of that sometimes, so that you stay focused on what’s important and maintain a good feeling, Ajo describes.
Soon he is already galloping towards the pit box, where he stops by several times during the test day. One of the team’s drivers has fallen a moment earlier and the mechanics are taking his bike back to the pit into parts. Ajo, looking cheerful, chats with his driver for a while and then tells the reporter that sometimes a crash at the beginning of a test day can serve as a positive wake-up call for the driver.
Less than twenty years ago, he reportedly woke up his driver, who had already crashed seven times during one race weekend, by instructing him to write a sentence like “I promise to concentrate properly” a thousand times on square paper.
– That kind of action seems a bit silly now, but at the time I couldn’t think of any other way, Ajo laughs.
– I think that we would hardly have progressed in the initial stages of the team without my passion, my stubbornness and maybe also the lack of knowledge, with which the realities were not so badly received.
More than two decades in the MotoGP pits has also accumulated a huge amount of experience, which is everything in his role. Experience and knowledge of people help him to find and put people in the right places. Pedro Acosta, touted as a superstar of the future, emphasizes two things when characterizing his team manager.
– He does not interfere with the driving technique, but with the driver’s peace of mind. That’s his secret. He also doesn’t care if you’re a fast driver or not. If he has something to say, he always gets straight to the point. It’s worth listening to him, says Acosta.
– My driving didn’t really go well and finally dad asked: Are you serious about doing this, or are we going home to sauna? There was a spark between us for a while and we even cried a little. If I remember, my lap time should have improved by three seconds as the day progressed.
This is how Niklas Ajo remembers the July training trip he made with his father to the Alastaro motor track 15 years ago. Niklas competed in the World Championship for five seasons and currently works in his father’s team as a Moto3 driver’s race engineer. The relationship between father and son is close, but during Niklas’ racing career, the two also clashed.
– Niklas once said that it would be nice if you were just a father sometimes. However, I was his coach, manager and mentor at the same time. In hindsight, maybe he was a bit of a guinea pig at times. Now, however, it’s great to see how he uses his own experiences in his current role.
Niklas Ajo believes that a certain kind of healthy stubbornness has been one of his father’s most important qualities in his successful career as a team manager.
– If you are too kind by nature, others will take advantage of you mercilessly when the situation arises. It’s a mercilessly tough world, because we’re talking about business and competitive sports at the same time.
According to Aki Ajo, his character, which is interpreted as stubborn, is more about not giving up when he finds a suitable object of passion. Motorcycles have always been like that for him. In middle school, he dreamed of his own motocross bike, and to get it, he decided to start restoring and selling used mopeds.
– I remember the feeling of excitement when on Saturday mornings I was waiting for the landline to pick up due to the sales announcement I put in Aamulehti. When the centamarks were then slapped on the counter, it did bring a feeling of well-being and increased enthusiasm even more.
Ajo describes that scrapping and selling mopeds was already like a training school for his current role. After all, it combined both the commercial and technical side and also a specific goal – that is, a motocross bike with which he could take his motorsport dream forward. The journey that started with that dream has been long and historic for Finns.
Ajo is still reminded of the hospital period that led to the establishment of his own stable by the screws and bone marrow nail in his femur. Over the years, one thing has also become clearer in his mind:
Starting a team didn’t just remain a drug to relieve withdrawal symptoms at the end of one’s own driving career. It also became a long-term mental protective shell.
– I have told many people that this is how I have been able to continue my own career for decades, and it still hasn’t ended.