At the end of this San Marino Grand Prix, the two Yamaha Tech3s of Johann Zarco and Jonas Folger crossed the finish line respectively 15e and 9e.
But if the German driver only ran out of fuel during his lap of honor before being pushed to his box by Bradley Smith, Johann zarco started to feel his engine die in the fast double left. After having covered the maximum possible distance on his momentum, the French rider had no other choice but to travel the straight line pushing his motorcycle to the finish line.
We have collected the explanation ofHervé Poncharal on this double dry breakdown…
Hervé Poncharal : “I think we will mainly talk about Johann because it is very common for MotoGP riders to have difficulty getting into the box because everyone is trying to optimize as much as possible in all departments. So in that of gasoline too. I think that today the engineers who manage weekend consumption and who decide on the quantity of gasoline to put in at the start have gone a little astray. They wanted to correct the plan initially planned for the dry because today the race started in the wet and we all know that it consumes a little less in the wet than in the dry. But here, I think it was nitpicking to gain nothing. But again, this is typical of engineers. The quantity involved is ridiculous. So indeed, it was borderline, but it's often borderline and, somewhere, when you come home hiccuping, you say to yourself "that's great, we were dead on and we finished the race". The engineers therefore say to themselves that they were good.
The problem is that Johann wanted to do two reconnaissance laps to be a little calmer in his head regarding breaking in his tires before placing himself on the grid. This had been explained to them and taken into account. With the normal procedure, which consists of doing a reconnaissance lap, the warm-up lap and the race, it worked, as for Folger. But Johann broke down in the last quarter of the circuit and missed a 7e place acquired since he was 3 seconds ahead of Redding. He had controlled the gap for more than 10 laps. A place of 7e, given the conditions, given that the first Yamaha was 4e, that she was not able to join the fight at the front in the track conditions we had, it was a great race. It further cemented our position as rookie and best independent, especially since two drivers who are right behind us in the championship, Lorenzo and Crtuchlow, had fallen. So we were happy to see the flag and finish the race. And There you go !
When I saw Johann push, I understood almost immediately: I couldn't imagine him falling, even if the inscription “crash” appeared for a fraction of a second on the screen. Given the lead he had, there was no reason, he had to bring the bike back, and Johann is intelligent and knew what he was doing.
I took stock with the people concerned and told them what I had to tell them. In a pretty blunt way, you know me. Now people are starting to know me through the interviews on Paddock-GP and know that I'm a bit of a sucker. But again, it's one of those things that you don't like to see but that can happen, that happened, that shouldn't have happened. Now you have to try to think about tomorrow, be positive by telling yourself that you had a decent race and that you learned. »
He also seems to take it with a certain fatalism…
“Yes, and I would like to thank him for that, because there are drivers who would have had much more violent and brutal reactions, whether physically when returning to the box or towards the media. He's a gentleman and once again, thanks to him! I am truly sorry and I apologized on behalf of the team, even if I am not involved in these decisions. But of course, you can imagine that I spoke about it with the factory, since they are the ones who manage all these parameters. »
