Herve Poncharal (IRTA)

In the third and final part of an exclusive interview with Herve Poncharal, conducted at the Australian MotoGP, attention turns to the financial side of motorcycle grand prix racing and the future of the world championship.

In addition to running his Tech 3 team in MotoGP and Moto2, Poncharal is also president of the teams’ association IRTA, representing the organisation during meetings of the Grand Prix Commission – alongside Dorna, FIM and MSMA – which decides the rules and regulations.

Click Here to read part one of the interview, focusing on the Tech 3 MotoGP team, and Click Here for part two, about the Tech 3 Moto2 team…

Crash.net:

As president of IRTA, how do you feel about the MotoGP championship in general?

Herve Poncharal:

So, let me make clear that the MotoGP championship is run by Dorna and FIM. I am only the IRTA representative, or president – but I don’t want to sound pretentious!

Nothing is perfect, but when you look back at what happened when we switched from two-stroke 500cc to four-stroke MotoGP [for 2002], everything we did at the beginning was under a lot of criticism: ‘What are you doing? Grand prix is two-stroke, this is shit, it is going to clash with World Superbike.’

Then when we changed from 250cc to Moto2 [in 2010] – that was also going to be a complete disaster: ’250 is the class that can make strong riders for MotoGP, they can learn because a 250 is a proper racing bike, blah blah blah’.

Moto2 is a real success. It is cheaper than 250 was. It is completely open because anybody has the package to win, which was not the case in 250. And when you see what Marc, Stefan Bradl and Bradley Smith are doing, you cannot say that Moto2 is not preparing riders to be strong in MotoGP.

Then Moto3 [which replaced 125cc in 2012] is producing some really, really exciting racing. We are working on making sure that the costs are not too high – there will be some decisions taken for next year and the year after so that it is affordable and open in terms of competition. I’m quite happy about that.

In MotoGP we introduced the [privateer] CRT class [in 2012], which was under a lot of criticism also. ‘What is this? It is Superbike’. Which is true, but what do you do?

Crash.net:

There would only have been twelve bikes on the grid without CRT…

Herve Poncharal:

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