There is little doubt that teammates Colin Edwards and James Toseland are not on the best of terms right now. It all started when Toseland allegedly stole Edwards’s crew chief Garry Reinders. Not to leave no good deed unpunished, Edwards took Toselands crew chief, Guy Coulon, in kind. The flip-flop has left the Tech3 camp in a bit of disarray with both riders now touting how much happier they are, although still very bitter about the outcome. Now Tech3 boss, Herve Poncharal, has weighed in his opinion on the matter.
In a say…interesting…approach to talent management, Poncharal has stated he believes the antics going-on in his garage will help motivate the two riders.
“If it gives extra motivation to James’ department and to Colin’s department I am absolutely happy. We will never see two riders going on holiday together because this is an individual sport. They respect each other still, ok they don’t talk anymore, but who cares? I wanted to give both of them the best support I could and that is what I have done.”
Poncharal explains the situation delicately when he says, “Colin was not so happy because he thought he could have been more involved in the decision making process, but he accepted it…I understood James’ point of view [too] because Garry lives in England close to James, and he speaks better English than Guy. James and Garry spent a lot of time together last year traveling to and from England and James likes to talk to his crew chief in between races.” That’s the French way of saying, my riders are acting like idiots, but as long as they win races I don’t really care a whole lot. While most theories of management would suggest a course away from this approach, we’ll leave our judgment for the seasons results.
This isn’t the first split camp in MotoGP. Rossi and Lorenzo are still leaving “the wall” up in their paddock, and not sharing information with each other despite running the same tires this season. A similar rift was the cause of Nicky Hayden leaving Repsol Honda after they showed Dani Pedrosa to be their golden goose. Just one big happy family, right?
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