So, Ducati has made its decision. A decision which goes against the result of the survey that we launched, at the end of which a majority of you wanted to see Andrea Iannone as a teammate of Jorge Lorenzo.
To help us, and you, to better understand Ducati's choice, we first called on an outside and informed eye: that of Hervé Poncharal.
Hervé, with your experience, can you explain the choice of Ducati to us?
Hervé Poncharal: “I'm not saying that Dovi is not ambitious, but Iannone, today, he has the fangs, he wants to eat the planet: he wants to fight with Rossi, Lorenzo and Marquez.
He is in the middle of an ascending period. So having a boy like that live next to Lorenzo wouldn't have been very easy, because he would never agree to be number 2, even if it was written in a contract, even though it probably shouldn't be. not be the case.
Lorenzo will in any case be the one on whom the factory's hopes will be placed first. Having alongside a Dovi who still has some experience, and who knows the Ducati house very well, because he was there before, who is a good soldier, who in my opinion will understand the organization and hierarchy better than Iannone , who will carry out tests while giving relevant comments each time, this is far from being a bad thing. There is one who is less flamboyant but more hard-working. So in my opinion, the Lorenzo-Iannone complementarity was less obvious than that of Lorenzo-Dovizioso. »
But the public would obviously have preferred Iannone…
“But it's obvious that for the public, the one called Jo the Maniac, who sometimes loses his temper, who is capable of doing crazy things, both positive and negative, would have been better. It triggers heightened passion more than a Dovi. So I understand the public. But I was talking to you about a reflection that a factory and a racing department could have, with all the problems they have to manage. They still have the mega-star with Lorenzo, and they have an interest in this team working in an interesting and constructive way, and as such, there is more complementarity with the Lorenz-Dovizioso duo.
That said, I have a lot of respect for Iannone and he's certainly one of the closest to being in a fight with the three or four Fantastics. And for him, possibly finding himself leader of a factory, why not Suzuki, that has more meaning than being the second knife at Ducati because, in any case, Lorenzo will have priority status. »
To be continued…
