Thursday June 13, news from the Tech3 team, already brilliant in 2024 in MotoGP thanks to the very talented rookie Peter Acosta, seems to have lit up further in the distance with the announcement of Hervé Poncharal's future drivers from 2025, Enea Bastianini and Maverick Vinales.
If the officialization of the first was not really a surprise, so much his agent Charles Pernat had let the news leak here and there, the appointment of the second had something to surprise as much as to seduce, since, for the first time in a long time, the Bormes les Mimosas team will present itself with two real names next season, in addition to having seen itself equipped over the years with 100% factory motorcycles.
The future therefore looks as clear as the Provençal sky for Hervé Poncharal, whom we managed to contact the same day in order to collect his comments, his emotions, and his details…
Hervé Poncharal, this morning we start the day with a big surprise, since a press release informs us that your Tech3 structure will align Maverick Vinales alongside Enea Bastianini in 2025, while, honestly, it must be said, everyone imagined that it would be Jack Miller who would replace Augusto Fernandez. Can you tell us how this was done and give us some details?
Hervé Poncharal : “What you need to know is that we are experiencing a fabulous year 2024 thanks to the Pedro Acosta phenomenon. We are in love with this exceptional young man pilot, whowhether it is through his performances on the track or whether it is also through the way he behaves on a human level with his team during the race weekends. Obviously, it was clear relatively quickly that Pedro would be included in the official team in place of Jack Miller alongside Brad Binder. It's something that made us somewhat sad, because we would have liked to continue the adventure with him, since really, today, it's a very beautiful adventure that we are experiencing with him. But I always said that I understood, that I supported this decision, that it was absolute logic and that it gave us so much pleasure to see that finally the efforts of the entire Pierer Mobility MotoGP research and development team made it possible up to RC 16 to do what it does. This is what we've all been working on together since 2019 and it's hot. So we noted Pedro’s departure…”
Excuse me for interrupting you Mr. Poncharal, but here I need clarification, because if I am not mistaken, Pedro Acosta will have the same technical team next year that he has this year at Tech3, the same bike that you will have at Tech3, the same KTM contract with the same salary I imagine. So why is this “absolute logic”?
“Pedro Acosta, already in 2024, has a contract with the factory, like Augusto Fernandez and like the 4 Pierer Mobility drivers, as is also done with other manufacturers. The 4 riders in MotoGP Augusto Fernandez, Pedro Acosta, Jack Miller and Brad Binder all have factory contracts, so they are all factory riders. But fans, media, and even some rankings still tend to say
“private team, satellite team, support team”, et cetera, as if there were a level A and a level B.
And it's not to want to be the frog who wants to be as big as the ox, not at all, but that no longer exists, it's a reality! So your question is very relevant, but we also know that humanity likes signs, and for Pedro, his entourage, his management, the entire organization Pedro we will say, wanted to be there, and when it happened is discussed, it was before certain decisions that we talked about were taken. So yes, there is not much that will change because he already has an official motorcycle with the same specifications and with the same developments as Binder and Miller, he has a contract with Pierer Mobility like Miller and Binder, and he has the mechanics with whom he feels very, very good. But every driver dreams of going to the factory structure, that's how it is. He dreams of it, his management dreams of it, and even if in the end it's a white hat and a white hat, he will be in the factory structure.
But to make sure everyone understands that there are 4 full official motorcycles at Pierer Mobility, 2 managed by the factory structure and 2 managed by Tech3, we are going to return to Red Bull KTM colors. So next year the 4 motorcycles will have the same colors, so that there will be even less visual distinction, and reflections in relation to this visual distinction, “Ah yes, there are satellites and there are officials”. Next year, Vinales, Bastianini, Acosta and Binder will be four factory riders at the same level, with the same colors, with the same partners, except the oil partner. We are moving towards this integration, but it is not easy to change the mentalities that have been there for decades, when there were private teams and Factory teams. So yes, the status of Bastianini and Vinales will be the same as that of Acosta and Binder, but yes, the 2 structures, Tech 3 and Factory KTM have their own technicians. So for several years, this is a trend which is completely normal and which I support, even if it was difficult to manage at the beginning, it is that the pilot, when he has a good feeling with his boss team, he wants to keep it. And we have seen that it has been happening like this at Ducati for several years, and it is also happening now at KTM. We saw that Jack Miller, when he left Ducati to arrive at KTM, he took his team leader, et cetera. »
In the Pedro Acosta Moto2-MotoGP movement, Aki Ajo, who has a superb team, keeps his men, and so Pedro invested in Tech3 with Paul Trevathan who was already with us to manage Pol Espargaro. It turns out that the dough has taken hold, that the relationship has been fabulous from the first day, and that now there is a real couple who have formed, as exists in many other teams, a real strong relationship of Paul Trevathan – Pedro Acosta pairing. So when he says “I’m going to take my team next year”, he will take his team which is Paul Trevathan and Alessio Capuano, his strategist. So the two minds of a MotoGP team, who are the team leader and the strategist will follow him, so I think the boy who manages the tires and the fuel for him, who is called Adrian and who is arrived with Pedro, even though he gets along really well with us. But obviously Pedro also has a great feeling with the Tech3 staff, Éric Laborie, Hervé Gourcy, Brice Grossin and the others, and they stay.
All right. He's not going to take everyone anyway, luckily for you, anyway...
“Luckily for me, but I am also lucky that the key elements of my team that Tech3 cannot part with, these men are not systematically ready to leave the structure in which they are, to possibly respond to the siren calls perhaps a little sexier than others. They know that they have been here with us for a long time, that we have created a bond, a human connection, that they also have stability with us and everything else. But these are elements that are complicated, it's true, because when Paul Espargaro came back to us saying that he wanted to work with Paul Travathan, fortunately we had already prepared in our heads and we needed a position where Nicolas Goyon had all the necessary qualities to be a team manager. And I'm very, very happy that he accepted, because he does a great job, he really helps us and we have a real team manager at Tech3 in the person of Nicolas Goyon. That's fabulous, but let's close the parenthesis. So there you have it, the parenthesis was long, but I think that Pedro will mainly leave with Paul Trevathan and Alessio who are respectively his team leader and his strategist. »
Let's close the parenthesis and return to your two future pilots. How did the negotiations go?
To be continued tomorrow…
Poncharal Tech3 2025
Poncharal Tech3 2025
Poncharal Tech3 2025
