A Brief History of the Italian Marque
Active in the years 1973 to 1989.
Giuliano and Alvaro Vernocchi ran a GP race team under the name of their agricultural equipment firm Adriatica. They commissioned Dutch engineer Jan Witteveen to build a 250cc tandem twin engine and housed this in a chassis created by Alessandro Strada and Dervis Macrelli.
A Bimota Adriatica with a Yamaha YB3 350cc engine was ridden by Eric Saul and Randy Mamola with considerable success in the 1979 season, limited largely by the lack of adequate brakes for Randy's riding style. This and other issues with Team Adriatica caused Randy to leave, as discussed in Cycle World, January 1980.
Walter Villa joined the team for the 1980 season.
Sources: ozebook.com, eurospares.com, Cycle World, paddockbike.com.
