The news that former F1 team boss Guenther Steiner was set to take over Herve Poncharal’s Tech3 KTM MotoGP team has hardly come as a shock - given that there have been rumours for months about the team (in large part fuelled by Poncharal’s own willingness to speak openly about the possibility of a sale).
And while it’s undoubtedly good news for the future of the series as new owner Liberty Media looks to use an established superstar from the F1 paddock to increase the audience of its new acquisition, it comes at one significant cost: the future absence of Herve from the MotoGP paddock.
One of the most loved characters in the paddock thanks in large part to his colourful character and his ability to turn a phrase in multiple languages (something aided by time the Frenchman spent living in London before becoming a team owner), he’s routinely one of the fans’ favourite headline generators.
To the media as well, he’s someone who can always be relied on not just for a snappy headline when he speaks but to make the time to speaks in the first place thanks to his genuine enjoyment in talking to us, something very much not shared with most of his peers.
Simply, Herve loves an interview - and normally the longer it is the better, giving him as it does the time to fully articulate his thoughts and go off on numerous wild tangents that somehow always make it back to the point in hand.
My personal record while speaking to him is, in peak Poncharal style, managing to squeeze in a mere three questions during a 50-minute long podcast recording a few years back!
But more than that, the reason why he’s going to be so missed by the paddock as well as by fans at home is because he’s not just a team boss, he’s a very human character in a profession normally better suited to people with more of a 'ruthless bastard' streak!
As an example; when I went to speak to him a few weeks ago to talk about the latest rumours about Steiner’s takeover of the team, he opened our chat with a passionate rant about the state of the world triggered by the collapse of international talks happening that day in Geneva to reduce plastic waste in the world’s oceans.
No other team boss in MotoGP would have found the time to care about something like that during a race weekend, let alone bring it up in conversation with journalists!
And despite his role for many years as very much part of MotoGP’s inner circle thanks to his presidency of the International Race Teams’ Association (a role he only recently gave up - replaced by LCR's likewise much-liked Lucio Cecchinello - ahead of the sale of his team), his passion for what’s right very much extended to how he did business in the paddock as well.
Earlier this year at the Grand Prix of the Americas, the starting grid for the race descended into chaos as rain started to fall and IRTA officials completely lost control of the situation, something that I was more than a little critical of on social media as the situation descended into farce.
Later that evening, I walked into the media centre and got summoned over to where Herve was holding court. “I saw what you posted on social media,” I was told, fully expecting a telling off for how strongly I had gone in on the situation, “and you’re completely right. Keep calling out bullshit.”
Hopefully, with Steiner, we’re going to see Herve passing the reins of the incredible team he’s built up from three people in a shed to multiple MotoGP race winners to someone definitely more alike him than most of the grid’s other team bosses - but it’s unlikely to be quite the same as Herve’s particular brand of Gallic charm and colourful English!
