Tech3 boss labels Thai GP performance “disheartening” and “lacklustre”

Tech3 had hoped for a much better result in MotoGP’s Thailand Grand Prix, its first race under under new CEO Guenther Steiner.

But as the former Haas Formula 1 star took over the reins from Herve Poncharal, the French team missed the mark at Buriram.

KTM’s satellite squad managed to salvage just four points from the weekend, thanks to Enea Bastianini’s 12th-place finish in Sunday’s long race. However, it was mainly thanks to late retirements that the Italian climbed the standings, aside from one overtake on rookie Diogo Moreira.

Maverick Vinales, for his part, spent a long time in a surprising second-to-last place (followed only by Michele Pirro, Fermín Aldeguer’s temporary replacement at Gresini), before overtaking both Pramac Yamahas. During the sprint, he was already 19th, sandwiched between two Yamahas, 21 seconds behind the winner, factory KTM rider Pedro Acosta.

“It’s clearly disheartening. It’s Guenther Steiner’s first weekend with us, and all we could offer him was this rather lacklustre show,” admitted team manager Nicolas Goyon to Canal+.

“We’re clearly disappointed, especially when you look at the factory team’s results. It’s definitely a double whammy. But it’s certainly the result of our work.

“I think we had a good test at Sepang, it went pretty well. Here, we already struggled quite a bit last year with our two riders, Enea and Maverick. We were in a different situation, with both riders still discovering the bike, so there wasn’t any real pressure. This time, it’s been difficult during all the tests [done] here; we’ve never managed to find a set-up that pays off.”

Tech3 was already on the back foot after qualifying, with neither of its riders progressing to Q2. While Acosta qualified on the second row and Brad Binder secured a direct passage into the second part of qualifying, Vinales and Bastianini could manage no better than 17th and 20th on Sunday morning.

“Once again,  what really hinders us on race weekends is qualifying,” the Frenchman said.

“Enea, 20th in qualifying… He had a pretty decent second half of the race, but starting so far back, there’s nothing we can do. We said it throughout last year, we need to improve that. We can’t seem to improve it. As long as we can’t improve our qualifying, it will be difficult to hope for results.

“For Maverick, it was a difficult weekend. I imagine he’s not feeling comfortable, that’s for sure. He has some technical choices that are certainly a bit different, [and] perhaps there are some things going on in his head. There must be quite a few things going on.”

“The weekend is clearly very, very disappointing. We’ll have to address this very quickly.”

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– The Motorsport.com Team

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