Shop
Remy Gardner has moved to defend his personal manager Paco Sanchez after father Wayne blamed him for costing the 24-year-old his MotoGP seat.
Gardner has been dumped by KTM and faces an uncertain future beyond the end of this, his rookie season in the premier class.
The 2021 Moto2 champion claims to have been told by KTM that he is “not professional enough” to keep his ride, although that has been publicly disputed by the marque’s Motorsports Director, Pit Beirer.
Either way, he is out of Tech3, which morphs into GasGas Factory Racing next year, and is likely to be replaced at season’s end by current Moto2 championship leader Augusto Fernandez.
Now, the Gardner junior has taken to Twitter to defend his personal manager in a response to criticism from his father.
“I am very sorry for the words of Wayne Gardner against my manager @PacoSanchez_ZSM,” the 24-year-old wrote on Twitter earlier this morning.
“Paco isn’t responsible for my KTM exit, and I fully trust in his professionalism and honesty.
“Together we will find a new project to continue enjoying this sport that I love so much.”
That comment follows a tweet from Wayne, the 1987 500cc world champion, during the just-completed San Marino Grand Prix weekend which described Sanchez as an “incompetent” “clown”.
One read, “Finally the GP paddock is waking up to Paco the [clown] blatant lies and incompetent management skills which unfortunately has cost Remy Gardner MotoGP career.”
He subsequently retweeted that post himself, then posted a slightly more reserved tweet in the 24 hours after the Misano race.
“It’s very sad to see Remy MotoGP future coming will end in 2022 because of his So called manager Paco Sanchez ridiculous behavior with KTM,” it read.
“Remy has the talent and potential to win but he needs many changes in his inner circle of management team and other areas.”
Sanchez had also been the subject of a rant by Beirer in German media in May, when he declared that rider managers are, “the biggest plague that has befallen the paddock in recent years, except for corona[virus].”
However, Wayne also rebuked KTM itself for ‘forgetting’ that his son is the most recent intermediate class world champion, and retweeted comments from others which disagreed with suggestions that Remy is unprofessional.
While Beirer had claimed that neither he nor the other two management figures in KTM/Tech3 responsible for Gardner – namely Team Manager, Herve Poncharal, and the Vice President Motorsports Road Racing & WP Factory Racing, Jens Hainbach – told him he had been dropped for not being sufficiently professional in an interview with pundit Simon Crafar on MotoGP’s television world feed, other comments in that tense exchange do hint at why the decision might have been made to not renew the Australian’s option.
“At the moment I feel like we need to work on the bike side, improve our bike and give the riders a better base,” admitted Beirer during said interview.
“Not to blame them for the results we’re not having. On the other side, we need to have also people who believe in our project and that we can succeed, and that was for us a crucial point.
“We got some information earlier in the season, during the season, which were not the kind of commitment we need.
“It’s not about the positive comments because we need to always live with the reality, but the commitment and the belief that we can fix it.
“We need those people around us because we are not there, where we want to be, and we want to build a better bike and have a better base for our bike.
“Of course, that’s a huge effort between the team and the factory at home, but the key to success is the rider on track and they need to believe also.”
Interestingly, Beirer also disputed Gardner’s claim that he only found out KTM was not taking up the option on his contract during the Austrian round a fortnight ago, saying he and/or his manager were advised at the “end of June”.
Gardner finished outside the points in 19th at Misano, six positions behind team-mate Raul Fernandez, who has been confirmed as a rider at RNF Aprilia from next year.
