French Johann zarco was put on the grill by the Italians of GP One and it was an opportunity to learn about the circumstances that led him to embrace the KTM cause for the rest of his career. Interesting revelations which raise questions about Yamaha policy but which also highlight a failure with Honda. The choice of Mattighofen is therefore as much out of conviction as opportunity…
The interview with the Transalpine colleagues is interesting, but there is a passage on the secrets of the negotiations for the next seasons which attracts more attention. The current Tech3 rider begins with Yamaha: “ It's too bad that Yamaha didn't want to make a deal with me. I learned that there is a project in progress with Pedrosa and that there was one with Lorenzo before him, in the company of Petronas. I never had this chance. I was never offered anything. They never came to see me to talk about what we could do together. And so, we had to look elsewhere ».
An interesting clarification which clashes with the official speech of a Lynn Jarvis who once swore that an official Yamaha motorcycle for the double World Champion was possible…
Look elsewhere, so it was turning to Austria. But before that, there were contacts with Honda. And there, for now, there is no point in throwing stones at HRC… “ Choosing a Honda would have been good too. But we didn't manage this approach very well. We certainly already had an agreement in principle with KTM, and we kept it secret. But still, I'll talk to Puig later to clear things up and apologize to him for the way it went. ».
The future will therefore be orange: “ so I chose KTM. It's courageous. But if you want to compete against Marc Márquez with the same bike as him, you have every chance of remaining second. To beat him, you have to do something different, choose another path. I believe a lot in KTM, in the support of Red Bull. We have two years to work well. Maybe I'm in the right place at the right time ».
