Before the French Grand Prix, nWe had the privilege of being able to interview Eric de Seynes, the atypical boss of Yamaha Motor Europe who does not hesitate to swap his suit for leather, in order to take stock of our two French riders in MotoGP, but also on the big effort made by Yamaha for the benefit of the competition through its important program blue cRU.
As always, his lighting is particularly interesting and we thank him greatly for it.
Eric, as our name suggests, we are primarily interested in Grands Prix, so we will start this interview with that subject. We have seen a panorama which has evolved considerably in a few months since, precisely a year ago, we had Johann Zarco praised to the skies by the press which even announced his probable victory at the French Grand Prix. A year later, Johann is in a relatively difficult position while Fabio Quartararo literally explodes in the eyes of the general public by roughly re-editing Johann's performances during the previous 2 years. Doesn't that somehow mean that they are at least as much about the bike, the Yamaha M1, as the riders?
Eric de Seynes
: “I think we must never forget that our sport is a mechanical sport. So there is sport, with man, and mechanics, the machine. The alchemy of the two must work. There are good motorcycles that are only operated by a very small number of riders, and there are good motorcycles that are operated more easily by a larger number of riders. Without talking about the competitors, I believe that we, the Yamaha, has always ultimately been a motorcycle that was designed with the search for a certain ease of understanding. And we see that all the rookies who came to the Grand Prix, starting even with Crutchlow at the time at Tech3 who had a good first season. And, obviously, Johann more recently, but even Espargaró and Smith at Tech3 weren't ridiculous. Smith then got a little lost but as long as he was at Tech3 it was good. So I think that the Yamaha is a motorcycle, and it's not a bluff, which is still quite close to the R1. Or the R1 is quite close to the M1. In any case, at Yamaha, the engineers who work in the MotoGP cell are generally engineers who after 5 or 10 years will work on production motorcycles. It is therefore not entirely an exclusive world in its own right, but it is a world where engineers are there to find the greatest efficiency, to have a motorcycle that performs well in all circumstances, on all circuits. , wet or dry, and which ultimately ensures that, on arrival, what we learn can be transposed to a production motorcycle. I therefore think that it is an approach to development that other manufacturers do not necessarily have, and which means that on arrival a young person who discovers the category suddenly finds himself in confidence and finds himself with a motorcycle which gives him a performance that he did not have in Moto2. In Moto2, he fought like a dog to try to make tiny gaps with the competitors, and there, all of a sudden, he found himself with a bike that had horses, that had electronics, that has a chassis with which he finds pleasure, and where he finds a new field of possibilities.
So I don't know if this is the only explanation for how Quartararo discovered the MotoGP category, where Zarco two years before him, but we see that in any case the junction and the link between Moto2 with a Speed Up chassis, or Kalex, and the M1 is something that works quite naturally. And when we see those who have chosen to go to other brands, we don't see the same evidence. So I think we have a bike whose behavior is quite naturally a continuation of Moto2.
Afterwards, I believed in Johann tremendously and pushed Johann because Johann has real talent. I was always very shocked by the way some people analyzed his success as having to do with work rather than talent. I think it was very violent. I remember a time when American pilots were admired because they rode and worked hard. We admired them, so why when it's a Frenchman who drives and works a lot, suddenly it's less admirable? That really annoyed me! Because I think that Johann is a true professional driver and that he has flourished with this rigor. And the Fellon-Zarco association worked very well in this ethic. I pushed a lot for Johann, whatever happened, to stay with us, and clearly the bike that Morbidelli has today was the one that belonged to him. He thought it was time for him to become a Factory driver. This is understandable and I have no qualms about it: I have already told him several times, and I understand it. And I regret that it was so visibly difficult for him. But hey, that's the route he chose at this point in his career, and it's true that when the group asked me what I thought of Quartararo, I pushed because I think that Fabio is someone who has shown a lot of talent in CEV and Moto3. Afterwards, he had a more difficult period but I think it was beneficial and he is reaping some benefits from it today. I have always heard and have always been convinced that we learn more from failure than from victory. Seasons of difficulty allow you to bounce back, whereas when you win too much, you have to be wary because that's when you become vulnerable. Fabio has had difficult seasons and when you have difficult seasons before the age of 19, you find yourself at 20 with the maturity of an older driver. So it’s tremendous potential.
Now, I also pushed a lot because the French market is a market that is important for supersports. We also see it with the audience for the French Grand Prix which is linked to the excellent work of Claude Michy, but also to a culture of speed which remains strong in France. And so, having a French rider among the Yamaha riders is something important for me, and I think that Fabio at least had the DNA to try it. There was a risk factor and I must admit that as I pushed quite a bit, I was very happy to see that the winter tests had gone well. And when I see the start of the season that it is making, it is well beyond my hopes and the hopes of Yamaha. Besides, I send him text messages regularly, and before leaving Jerez, I told him » you have already done the job, you start at the front of the line, you are in an extremely rapid build-up: do your race without worrying about the result " . At this level, whether he scores 4 or 6, no one cares: When you're on your 4th Grand Prix and you've already done that, the issue is not there for his career. He builds, and I told him, because that’s what counts. And I find that he is a good listener, and I hope that he will succeed in managing the pressure that will begin to accelerate around him, because it is not easy and it is even dangerous, especially at 20 years.
And to come back to the original question, what people don't always believe is that Fabio had the choice during the winter tests to choose his bike, with its chassis and its engine, among the same choices as Valentino or Vinales. Obviously there is a Factory team and a satellite team, but today the differences are completely minimal, except that the Factory team develops things that the satellite team does not develop. Sometimes it goes in the right direction, sometimes it doesn't always go in the right direction. As a result, fans sometimes say that the Factory team is on the street compared to the satellite team. Except that the latter uses a solution that works while the Factory team uses a solution that will perhaps work better, but sometimes not. It's part of the game and when the gaps were a second or two per lap 10 or 20 years ago between the Factory teams and the satellite teams, it didn't show much because when they tried something that didn't work , they lost 4 tenths but they remained in front. Today, if you lose 4 tenths, you are like Valentino, 13th on the grid in Jerez. So everything is no longer visible, but the job of the Factory team is the same. In the end, we have a good bike which is readable and usable by a talented rider without it being too complicated, and yes we have a Factory team which works a lot to try to develop new parts and find deviations.
