Even more trouble is brewing in Yamaha camp. First Jorge Lorenzo tossed some grenades over the wall in his garage at Valentino Rossi, and now James Toseland has gone off and stolen Colin Edwards’ crew chief. Hold on it’s going to be bumpy ride, read more after the jump.
Gary Reinders, who was Edward’s crew chief, has now switched over to the Toseland side of the Garage for the 2009 season.
According to Toseland the switch is necessary to ensure his place in MotoGP, and the expert skills of Reinders should be allocated to him, and not Colin, who’s time in MotoGP is likely coming to an end soon:
“The simple fact is there was a communication problem between Guy [Coulon] and myself. There was a lack of understanding between my feedback and how it translated into the bike. I’m not criticising anybody. This is solely to get an understanding so we can work in a more productive way…Gary pointed out that he would like to work with me. It is not a secret that it could be Colin’s last year in 2009, and Gary also wants a longer career in MotoGP, as I do. I can’t have the inconsistency next year, because I don’t want it to be my last year, either.”
Edwards does not share the same sentiment as Toseland, and says that a code of ethics has been breach in the paddock.
“I think he has crossed the line. The thought of taking my teammate’s crew chief would never have crossed my mind, but I guess I’ve got a different code of ethics than what James has and that’s probably the part that has pissed me off the most. I won’t lose any sleep over not talking to James.”
Edwards goes on to say that Toseland needs to put up or shut-up: “He’s got the best crew chief he believes he can have, so now he’s got to go out and prove it and stop blaming everything else,” Edwards said. “His only option now is to win races. He’s got no excuses; now I don’t feel any need to show any respect towards both of them, really.”
Either completely clueless, or running a good PR machine, Herve Poncharal, the Tech 3 team manager, stated just a week ago in an interview with MotoGP.com:
“I think both Colin and James are really happy with the change of crew chiefs. It is good to have stability but it is always good to have something new and not to fall asleep. In Valencia after the race we had a meeting with Colin, his new crew chief and the team that he will keep and then we did the same later with James and both of them seemed really fired up, really happy.”
With this many different stories going on, now we know where the trois in Tech 3 comes from.
Source: motoblog.it, Yahoo, & MotoGP
