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Photo: Jim Priest
New gear,
downloadable
catalog
& more specials
online at:With his flying hydraulic comput-
er, tuned air springs, and brake-
by-wire inventions, it’s no surprise
Mercedes-Benz also won two
championships under his guidance.
But constant rule changes meant
his inventions were soon outlawed,
and he felt the game was getting
repetitive after 12 years.
As a side gig, he’d been helping
out with the Ducati MotoGP team,
after Bentley CEO Wolfgang Dürhe-
imer recruited him. A move to
Bentley in 2015 was a natural next
career step because it meant he
could also return to his first love—
two wheels—while carrying on his
simulation testing.
“I’m especially glad to be working
with Ducati,” Tuluie says. “I’ve
worked with its MotoGP team
for three years, and visit Bologna
about once a month to develop the
chassis.”
Exactly what he’s doing with
the Ducati MotoGP team is classi-
fied, but it’s an easy guess that it
might have something to do with
tuned mass dampers and high-tech
inventions. It’s only logical, givenhis experience playing with the sky-
high budgets in F1—where shaving
a tenth of a second on the track is
worth tens of millions of dollars—
that he’ll bring his experience to
bear on two wheels next.
Despite four F1 World Drivers’
Championships, a couple of WERA
National Championships, and
Daytona wins, Tuluie is surprising-
ly humble, with the same boyish
enthusiasm we witnessed in the
1980s. He’s well-known at vintage
events in the U.K. for slinging his
Menasco Pirate sideways, and flog-
ging his outrageous home-built rac-
ing motorcycles at Goodwood and
the Festival of 1000 Bikes. All those
racers still live in his garage, and
his Roadholders jacket hangs in the
closet because they bring him joy.
Ducati’s MotoGP fans hope he’ll
also deliver some joy, after two
years of placing second in the
rider’s championship —and nary
a top prize since Casey Stoner’s
championship in 2007. To my
reckoning, there’s no better candi-
date, and we expect more News of
Rob soon. Q