Interview Hervé Poncharal: A studious return to school but without pressure. And a scoop!

After this first official day of testing at Sepang, we were able to gather the feelings of Hervé Poncharal who is not in his first season, and is therefore able to have the necessary perspective, or to highlight the particularities back to school in Malaysia.

And precisely, speaking of Malaysian particularity, the boss of the Monster Tech3 team had just suffered the effects of the local weather when we contacted him…

Hervé Poncharal: “We just hit a very big storm when leaving the circuit. I don't know yet if he hit the circuit, but if so, I think it will be very complicated if the track is dry tomorrow morning.
Anyway, I'm very, very happy for Tech3, regarding this first day. It went pretty well and we had a roughly dry track until 16 p.m. It was almost unexpected given the weather of the last ten days. This allowed everyone, including us, to do quite a few laps and regain our bearings a little. I saw your article concerning Johann but I think that we should not focus on the absolute best time, especially when it comes to Tech3, because we are not looking for a time. With our two drivers, we rather covered kilometers and kilometers while keeping the same tires. Despite this, Jonas Folger had a very good time before midday. Then, from 16 p.m., we had a downpour, and our two drivers drove a lot on wet tires, first with the soft compounds, then the slightly harder ones. It was interesting because it was the first time they rode a MotoGP and the Michelins in the rain, and both were very, very pleasantly surprised by the grip of the Michelins in the rain.
Both told us that they were amazed by the grip of the Michelin tires, that much is clear.

Otherwise, the day went well, with no falls to my knowledge, and as one might expect, it was a studious day: not many people came out to clock a time , Lorenzo applied himself, Rossi and Vinales too, and everyone worked a lot. You shouldn't focus too much on the times on one lap on this first day. In any case, and for all those who are far away in this first ranking, there is no fire in the house. We're so caught up in the moment... Today, everyone is focused on the times, and that's normal, but tomorrow morning everyone will have forgotten today's times, and Wednesday those of Tuesday. And when we all get home, we will all be focused on preparing for Phillip Island…”

It’s the little pressure put on by the media and by enthusiasts…

“Yes, and I'm not criticizing her, but I'm putting things into perspective... Above all, we have to ride, and ride, and ride! And let us learn. Frankly, Johann is good, and he did the job we expected of him, and Jonas really surprised us: he did very well too. Tonight we feel like a team that did its job well and got off to a good start to its first day of 2017.”

So a very studious return to school, without trying to make a splash…

“Back to school studious, yes. Everyone rode quite well and rode quite well but, apart from perhaps Stoner who had been there for a while and who was perhaps more in search of a time, everyone was really relaxed without trying to impress by cracking a beat. It will certainly come tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, but today has been quiet. »

A quiet day, but with a little touch of sadness, all the same…

" Ah good ? Which ? »

Well… there are no more fins!

“(Laughs). So, I don't know about it, but some journalists thought they saw, on the Japanese Yamaha test, somewhat sophisticated fairings with aerodynamic elements inside. From the side of the track, where I spent a lot of time, I saw nothing, and afterwards, I had a lot of meetings. »

But that’s a scoop!

“I don’t know, I didn’t see anything. I'm sorry but I can't contribute anything to your “Spy Attitude” series (laughs). »

Thank you Hervé, we will now try to take a closer look at this mysterious Yamaha…

Photo source:  Giorgio Mulliri Blog