Zoom Hervé Poncharal celebrating Edwards' Shanghai pole

Tech3 Yamaha boss Hervé Poncharal was pleased with finishing fourth in the 2008 Teams´ World Championship and is hoping for more success in the coming 12 months.

Sticking with the same rider line-up of Colin Edwards and James Toseland in 2009 Poncharal has high hopes for his Tech3 Yamaha team next season.

In the mean time there are matters such as new tyres, a swap in team personnel, further improving rider competitiveness and finding a title sponsor to keep him busy over the winter, as the Frenchman explained…

What are your thoughts on moving over to Bridgestone tyres for the new season?
“I think everybody was pushing to go to a one-tyre rule, when you see what happened this year. Although, for our team we had some great moments with one pole position and two podiums thanks to Michelin´s support. Anyway, I think it will help us to work on things from a safety point of view because it will freeze some development and that was the request of most of the riders. I think also on cost it will also help us because we have already seen after the Valencia Grand Prix that there will be less testing during the winter and less testing after the racing.
With what we are going through at the moment in terms of the financial situation altogether this is going to help us, firstly to spend less and second to have a better show. The grid should be a lot closer as everybody is going to be on the same specification with the same allocation of tyres. Also it will help the riders´ confidence because everyone has the same material and there will be no excuses.”

What do you feel your riders need to do individually in order to improve their respective competitiveness levels ?
“Firstly, I want to say that I am quite happy with what we did in 2008 because thanks to Colin and James we finished fourth in the Teams´ championship, we were the best `independent´ team and were in front of two factories. The main point now is that on 26th-27th November we will be in Jerez to work for the first time on the new specification Bridgestone tyre and this will be the main focus of that test. From February we will work on the new ´09 bike and this will be like all winter tests, to understand the new bike, to work with the new tyre manufacturer and to work with the team.”