Valiant enough to take Miguel Oliveira to the podium in the 2017 championship, and brilliant enough to allow the Portuguese rider to fight for the title in 2018, the KTM Moto2 badly digested the switch to the Triumph engine in this 2019 season.
At least for the moment, because the men of Mattighofen are sparing no effort to rectify the situation and stem the chattering which has penalized the Austrian machine to this day despite several chassis upgrades, the last of which occurred last weekend. at Le Mans for Brad Binder, Jorge Martin et Marco Bezzecchi.
And yet, if the first two mentioned make the most of the recalcitrant tubular chassis, one thanks to his experience in the intermediate category, the other thanks to his talent concretized by a title of Moto3 world champion, it does not happen much on the side of the Italian managed by the VR46 Riders Academy who currently officiates under the Red Bull KTM Tech3 colors.
Results, after 5 events in the championship, and to only talk about the KTM riders, Brad Binder has 38 points, Iker Lecuona 26, Joe Roberts et George Martin 2… and the 2 Tech3 drivers, Marco Bezzecchi and Philipp Öttl, zero !
Worse, at Le Mans, while 12 drivers did not finish the race, the 2 representatives of the French team finished last in front George Martin who suffered a ride through, and, undoubtedly even more worrying, more than 40 seconds behind the KTMs of Binder et lecuona...
It didn't take much more to test the patience of a Hervé Poncharal who now decides to bang his fist on the table and call a spade a spade.
A message certainly intended for his drivers, but perhaps also for his own team…
Hervé Poncharal : “Today is the fifth round of the championship and, until now, our two Moto2 riders have never managed to score a single point, which is very frustrating for the whole team. I would also like to apologize to KTM, who support us incredibly well, sending us new parts at every Grand Prix and, today, with a lot of retirements, I really strongly believe that we should have scored our first points this season. That was the mission, and it was a pretty easy mission with everything that happened for the other pilots ahead. I'm not happy and I think we need to change something radically and quickly. This is not a way to work. I don't see any progress and although both of our riders are beginners, we have a lot of beginners ahead of us. I think the profile of the team and the drivers, and the whole potential of the package, is much higher than what we are doing. I hope that from the next round, we will have reset everything, and that we will start from a new base with a new spirit, with perhaps a little more humility and more work.
Standings: French Moto2 Grand Prix at Le Mans:
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
