Words and images courtesy of Monster Energy
Paging Herve :
15 minutes with the MotoGP Team Boss from an Argentine airport lounge
Herve Poncharal ’ s familiar smiling face and upper body clad in seemingly full-time black and green Monster Tech 3 Yamaha gear flashes up on the telephone screen . It is late in Europe but slightly earlier the day after the Gran Premio Motul de la Republica Argentina and round two of nineteen in 2018 MotoGP .
On Sunday the Frenchman watched his rider Johann Zarco miss out on a first premier class win by two tenths of a second and late fill-in replacement for the season , Hafizh Syahrin , breach the top ten in just his second outing on the Yamaha M1 . Zarco , the mercurial and slightly mysterious talent ( already the most successful Frenchman in the history of Grand Prix courtesy of two Moto2 world titles and a total of 45 podium appearances – 16 of those victories ) was beaten by Cal Crutchlow ; Poncharal ’ s former charge from 2011-2013 . u
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