Gianni Savio enunciated the word carefully and deliberately: “Traghettare.” It’s a word he finds himself using a lot these days, and that’s a worry.
Its literal translation is “to make a crossing by boat” and Savio reached repeatedly for that nautical image on Padova’s Prato della Valle this week as he described his attempts to keep his Drone Hopper-Androni team afloat for another season.
All seemed calm last winter, when Savio unveiled Drone Hopper as his new sponsor. A four-year deal was agreed and signed, and there was even lofty talk of trying to earn promotion to the WorldTour in that time.
“They came in with big ideas,” Savio told Cyclingnews ahead of the Giro del Veneto this week. “We said: ‘Careful, let’s move gradually’.”
The waters have grown rather stormier since, as Drone Hopper, the Spanish drone manufacturer, has floundered and failed to live up to its financial pledges.
The mid-season transfer of Jefferson Cepeda and Andrea Piccolo to EF Education-EasyPost provided short-term relief, with the triggered release clauses bridging a gap in the team’s finances, ensuring salaries for the remaining riders and staff could still be paid. Long-term sub-sponsor Sidermec provided assistance, too, to help reach the shore of season’s end.
In August, however, Savio told all his riders and staff that they were free to seek employment elsewhere. As the racing calendar draws to a close in Italy and Malaysia this week, the situation is grave.
“They’re good people at Drone Hopper but, unfortunately, it’s a start-up company,” Savio said. “They would like to continue sponsoring us, but they don’t have the means at the moment. They tell me they’re starting to earn money and that they will be able to pay us, but I said I need a guarantee.”
Per UCI rules, Drone Hopper deposited a bank guarantee roughly equal to a quarter of the team’s wage bill at the start of this season. Savio said that a bank guarantee of the same value would also be deposited for next season, given that he holds a contract with Drone Hopper through the end of 2025, but that sum of money would not suffice to maintain a team with ambitions of competing at the Giro d’Italia.
“We have a bank guarantee of €350,000, but that doesn’t bring you far with a team at this level and I certainly don’t want to tie myself to that risk,” Savio said. “That’s the situation we’re in – we’re in a situation of standby. It’s not true that we’ve decided not to…
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