Hervé Poncharal, we are taking advantage of this French Grand Prix to collect your comments, first of all on this beautiful national Grand Prix in which the French shone, but also on the performances of your drivers who did particularly well: What did you experience and what did you like?
Hervé Poncharal : " First of all, even if it has been said and repeated, a big congratulations and a big thank you to Claude Michy, to Dorna and to all the people who work for having, despite the complicated conditions, organized this Grand Prix de France at the Mans! I think Claude, year after year, does a great job, and even when the winds are against him, he fights for the French Grand Prix to take place. It's the most important thing and it's always a great pleasure to be together at Le Mans.
In addition, this year he had to face very complicated climatic conditions with cold, very strong wind, frequent and heavy showers, a track that was very rarely dry and very cold. So difficult conditions and a record of 117 falls, as you pointed out, but despite this, the races were good in the three categories, with a Moto3 race, which started in the wet and finished in the dry, which gave place for superb twists and turns, and therefore a magnificent race, a Moto2 race in complete dry which was a great race too, and the premier category which starts in dry conditions and which is quickly declared a wet race with the famous flag to flag. It wasn't easy to manage but I think it gave the show even more intensity. »
« The viewer figures provided to us by Canal+ and C8, since C8 had decided to get involved by broadcasting the French MotoGP Grand Prix unencrypted, are incredible! It warms our hearts, because of course we miss the spectators a lot, the atmosphere of Le Mans with this madness in the stands and these people we meet entering and leaving the paddock, we miss it, it He was sad and silent. We also miss all the people, the guests, the sponsors, the media, but what brings comfort to our hearts in the face of all these difficulties is precisely seeing the numbers of viewers who follow MotoGP. Combined, there were almost 1,9 million on average, and there were peaks of up to 2,4 million, which is really superb and which makes us happy and proud of the work that the we all do it together! Obviously, the Fabio Quartararo/Johann Zarco phenomenon is preponderant, but there is still an increasing appetite for the MotoGP show, and I think that these conditions which were difficult to manage for the teams and the organizer have created an even more impressive spectacle, with incredible twists and turns. For me, it was a superb event, a very nice French Grand Prix, even if there were a lot of crashes there were no major injuries, and when we see the follow-up from the viewers, that gives us shows that there are quite a few people who support everything we do. And obviously, when we have been involved in the sport of MotoGP for so long, it also gives us pleasure to see that a whole bunch of general mainstream media, whether radio, written press or even television, are talking more and more about MotoGP. , of Fabio and Johann, because that is why we have always fought: That MotoGP is no longer in a small niche, considered a minor sport, or even, in quotes, black jackets. It makes me particularly happy because for almost half a century that I have been rowing in this direction, seeing things evolve as they are evolving is a great satisfaction. »
« As for Tech3, like everyone else, we suffered and struggled to cope with all these track conditions which were complicated, but in the end we achieved a superb result. We saw that Danilo had lost none of his outlook in the rain, since he gave us the best time in the warm up which was the only completely wet session. Then he had a superb race, despite a place at the back of the grid at the start, he moved up to fifth place by having a faultless race, having a good strategy since we had decided for our two drivers to leave in medium, the hardest rubbers of the rain options. It was tricky at the start of the second part of the race in the rain, but at the end of the race the drivers on medium were clearly almost three seconds faster than those on soft. We were therefore able to improve a lot and we achieved our best ranking of the year, fifth, the best KTM. »
« Special mention also to Iker Lecuona who, despite a fall on his exit lap on rain tires that were not yet well established, moved up to ninth place, passing Valentino Rossi on the penultimate lap and Maverick Viñales on the last lap. to finish ninth. So we have our two riders fifth and ninth and we are the two best KTMs, which is a satisfaction and which also shows that it is important to have an independent team. I think this might make the people at Suzuki who had their two official riders down think a little: if they had had an independent team, they might have scored some interesting points and saved their honor. of the brand. »
« In Moto3, for our second year, we kept the same riders as last year and we have clearly taken a good step forward. We saw our Japanese driver, Ayumu Sasaki, who was making a great start. Usually, he doesn't advance in the rain but here he immediately found himself in the good group by being very aggressive in tricky track conditions. He took the right car and left in the lead pack. »
« On the other hand, Deniz Öncü, who had a magnificent and masterful race in Jerez, even if it did not finish, was much less comfortable at the start of the race. He had one or two scares on the first lap so you have to have the right feeling and have confidence in the rain. For the first 10 laps, he really wasn't on the pace. On the other hand, for reasons that we still don't know, because these are special conditions and a lot goes through our heads in the rain, we had the impression that it was no longer the same driver, or else that he had been stung by a hornet, from roughly halfway through the race: he rode incredibly well, setting the best lap of the race on every lap. While everyone was on the same tires, he started to come back, sometimes three seconds behind the leaders, which allowed him to get back into the points and finish on the heels of Acosta in ninth position. We know that Deniz is someone who can win races: In the last three races, Portugal, Jerez and Le Mans, he has the second absolute race time. It's not paying off yet but it will pay off one day, and as for Sasaki, he's still five points from second position in the general classification, so he's having a superb start to the championship, and apart from the fall in the last lap when he was in the lead in the first race in Qatar, he only performed well and has really taken a step forward since last year, like Öncü. So why not consider winning races in the next races? ? »
« The good thing about Moto3 is that the field is now very balanced between all the bikes, between all the teams and between the two manufacturers which are Honda and KTM. Here, we are really in a very difficult, very exciting but superb category! We learn so much! So it's not surprising to see riders coming out of Moto3 doing what Raúl Fernández does for example for his first Moto2 races, then very quickly doing what Jorge Martin did by switching very quickly to Moto2 before moving up. in MotoGP and to be immediately competitive. Really, Moto3 is a magnificent category, and we found the technical recipe to run a mono 250, originally from cross, with a small chassis around it with a lot of technical constraints and little development so that the financial cost is acceptable. We really have a great entry category in the world! »
« And then, I'm also very happy for MotoE because I've had several feedback from people who followed the race on television at Le Mans, and who were amazed by the show. Because these are heavy bikes, bikes that don't do a lot of laps, but I think there was a magnificent show at Le Mans. We had our driver Lukas Tulovic who was third for a long time before finding himself a little outside in the fight of the last lap where they were a bit against each other and finishing last in the group at less than 'one second from the winner. Corentin Perolari, after a complicated weekend in Jerez, finished ninth, which is also very good »
“So for us the overall result from Tech3 at Le Mans was a great race. It was a good weekend, we had fun, and apart from the weather, even if when we go to Le Mans we rarely expect to get sunburned, we had a good weekend and all the people there We met with a smile, whether it was the few sponsors on site, the journalists in the press room or the superb organization of Canal+. I think that there is a constructive atmosphere around MotoGP, and in the very difficult and complicated period that we are going through, it is pleasing to see that there are certain sectors of activity, particularly in events, which works like MotoGP works. »
To be continued tomorrow with “the annoying questions”…
