Give me an impression of how things have been considering the drama and Jonas Folger’s last minute withdrawal at the beginning of the year? It seems to have turned out quite well so far…
It was very tough to hear Jonas Folger telling us just a few days before heading to Malaysia for the first test of the 2018 season that he was not only missing the test but also the whole year. We basically had a one-rider team and the other guy would be there to make up the numbers on the grid. We were thinking, thinking, thinking and we tried Yonny Hernandez in Sepang just have to someone on the bike and to give him a chance. While we were there I was walking through the paddock with the weight of the world on my shoulders and I came across Razlan Razali, who is the CEO of the Sepang International Circuit. We were chatting and an idea popped into my head and I said “Razlan, what about Syahrin on a MotoGP bike?” He replied “Yeah! How much?” and I said: “It’s free! But I know you have a Moto2 programme” but he said any kind of MotoGP deal would be great. From that moment on I started to get excited again. It was a tough mission to convince the partners but we made it happen. MotoGP is an exciting and extreme sport but a lot of times people in it are very conservative. When you have a situation like we had with Folger leaving then you have two solutions: take no risk – which is not ‘MotoGP’ – and you end up with something boring that will bring zero excitement and coverage and zero return for the sponsors and investments or you try to do something a bit more ‘rock and roll’. Since Syahrin jumped on the bike in Thailand for the second test of the year he has been like a dream. It is always a big gamble when you change classes and he was not dominating Moto2 so it was an even bigger challenge when you think that Zarco was double world champion in the category. So, I’m extremely happy because not only has he been very fast but hasn't made many mistakes and gives great technical feedback. In