Метка: Johann Zarco

Yamaha having more MotoGP bikes in 2025 will push Honda to improve

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


LCR rider Johann Zarco hopes Yamaha’s expansion to four bikes in MotoGP next year will provide an extra incentive for Honda to close the gap to the front.

The French rider believes the decision of his former team Pramac to become a satellite squad for Yamaha from 2025 will benefit both Japanese manufacturers, as they seek to level the field with their European counterparts.

Both Yamaha and Honda have fallen further behind the competition this year despite changing their philosophies over the last 12 months, with MotoGP’s new concession system also proving insufficient to help them make any meaningful progress in the middle of the season.

Yamaha’s position in the last few years has been weakened due to the absence of a satellite team, but it will get to have four bikes on the grid for the first time since 2022 as Pramac ends a 20-year partnership with Ducati in favour of a move to the Iwata-based brand.

Asked for his opinion on the switch, Zarco — who scored one victory and 14 podiums during his three-year spell with Pramac — said: «It will be good for the Yamaha project. They need more bikes to develop and get more information. 

«It’s good to get more Japanese bikes in the championship because now the European bikes, the Ducati, [they] get too much advantage so it finds a little bit better balance. And I hope that the Japanese will reduce the gap with the Ducati.

«[With] Marc and Pecco for next year in the top team, they will be impossible to reach and they will fly all year. 

Johann Zarco, Team LCR Honda

Johann Zarco, Team LCR Honda

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

«But at least from third position to the 10th position, there will be some changes and that will be good. 

«And I think Yamaha doing improvements and getting more bikes on the grid will push Honda also to make the changes or push themselves to find solutions.»

With a best finish of just 12th in the opening nine grands prix of the season, Honda has scored only 24 points in the manufacturers’ standings — half as many as its nearest rival Yamaha. By contrast, all three European manufacturers have scored over 150 points, with Ducati taking its total over 300 with its latest triumph in the German Grand Prix.

Zarco firmly believes there is not much more pace that can be extracted out of the current version of the RC213V and Honda needs a new bike in order to have any chance of taking the fight against its rivals.

«[We are] still too far. The bike is still not competitive enough to make a step in the top 10,» the 33-year-old said. 

«I look forward to a new bike that will give this performance. I try at the moment to improve myself and this [Sachsenring] weekend I could try to use the strong points of the bike because there are some areas where the bike is not too bad and I tried to use it to the maximum.

«I don’t know [when the new bike will arrive]. But I wait. I don’t want to know [when it will it arrive] because it will not change my concentration for all the races. But at least I would like to [do] as well as possible over what I have control.» 

Additional reporting by Bjorn Smit and Sebastian Franzschky

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Zarco says outburst at Jerez MotoGP stewards was ‘unprofessional’

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Zarco raged at chief FIM steward Freddie Spencer following last month’s Spanish GP after a collision with Aleix Espargaro late in the race.

The French rider’s frustrations at the stewards’ processes – among other things – led to a fiery outburst in race control, before telling the media that he felt Spencer was not right for his job.

On Thursday ahead of this weekend’s French GP, Zarco met with the stewards again to discuss what happened at Jerez, with his LCR team posting on social media:

“LCR rider Johann Zarco has attended this morning to a meeting with the Stewards Panel, after the incident in Jerez.

“The outcome of it has been very positive, with both parties discussing how to enhance the safety and reviews of all incidents occurred in the championship.”

Zarco admitted on Thursday in the pre-event press conference that his actions were unprofessional and explained further as to what happened in his meeting with the stewards on Thursday.

“Two weeks are gone, so we can arrive a little bit calmer to a meeting,” he began.

“What was not professional from my side was to get a high voice [shout] during the meeting.

“It was not necessary to do it, but after the crash and what happened and the way the meeting was happening, I needed to say those things.

“But this was not professional from my side. But I said to Freddie and the other marshals, they are free to take a decision, but it’s only Freddie who is speaking but then they take the decision all three.

“I said that I was clearly not agreeing – and we do not agree – many times on different things.

“They try to study the things and just there are some intentions, and then there is also the comment of the riders. And that’s a bit complicated.

“I could say my feelings and that was great, and we spoke about it.

“But about this last incident, it was just the feeling of the meeting that was not really great because almost when they want to know what I think about the crash – what could I say about the crash?

“I could not say a lot because I’m the one who gets hit and I needed to justify something. So, that’s why I got a bit angry.”

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Honda ‘doesn’t need to be pessimistic’ about MotoGP form

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Honda’s downturn in performance has continued into the new campaign, with the RC213V still lagging behind rivals despite the work that went into upgrading the bike over the winter.

The Japanese manufacturer returned empty-handed from last weekend’s Americas GP, with Luca Marini finishing 16th and last in the sole-surviving Honda, as Zarco, LCR team-mate Takaaki Nakagami and factory rider Joan Mir all retired with unrelated issues.

The non-score came 12 months after Alex Rins guided the LCR team to a stunning victory at the Circuit of the Americas, a venue where Marc Marquez had previously been unbeatable on the factory bike.

But Zarco doesn’t see Honda’s lack of results in the early part of the year as a cause for concern, as he feels the brand has what it takes to turn around its fortunes.

“I’m still positive,” he said. “We don’t need to be pessimistic, because we knew that it was going to be difficult with this really new project. Honda changes so many things.

“It’s easy to say we need time, but this is it because on races where Honda was performing well [like Austin], at the moment we did the worst.

“When we compare to other bikes, we clearly see that something is missing.

Johann Zarco, Team LCR Honda

Johann Zarco, Team LCR Honda

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“[We] don’t need to be pessimistic because I really think there are no secrets on the technical side, just things to understand and we have the capacity of the people to understand it.

“But maybe we need to see it in another way, another prism, another way to see things.

“As long as I can give this energy I gave on the bike and give this explanation because that’s my quality as a rider, we will go forward.”

Honda MotoGP boss Alberto Puig admitted that he is “confused” as to why the “good improvements” made on the bike have not yielded the desired results on track so far.

He had previously suggested a big boost in Honda’s performance is possible by the summer break, as the full impact of its operational overhaul becomes clear.

Zarco said a frustrating outing at Austin will only serve as a reminder of where it needs to improve, as it continues to bring new parts on the bike and take advantage of the new concessions system.

“We maybe weren’t competitive. It’s just as well taking a beating like this to really realise some things,” he told French broadcaster Canal+.

“We really seem to be in a different system. There are no secrets, Honda will find [solutions], because they’ve revolutionised things so much that they need to find again their bearings a bit, but I’m trying to analyse it this way.

“Clearly, we want to fight and we can’t, so I’m gutted. I pedaled after the few laps I did, to sweat the frustration out and let it go.”

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Zarco not «scared» of losing riding style on Honda like in KTM MotoGP days

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


After four years on Ducati machinery across Avintia and Pramac teams, Zarco has joined LCR in 2024 in a two-year deal signed directly with Honda Racing Corporation (HRC).

It’s arguably the Frenchman’s biggest career move since he left Tech 3 Yamaha at the end of 2018 to join KTM, a switch that failed spectacularly and led to the pair parting ways even before they had completed their first season together.

But even though the philosophy of the Honda RC213V is vastly different to the Desmosedici he is accustomed to riding, as six-time champion Marc Marquez has found by switching in the opposite direction this year, Zarco is not worried about a repeat of the struggles he faced on the RC16 in 2019.

“I was scared when I moved from the Yamaha to the KTM,” he said. “That’s why I quit KTM, [I was] really worried about losing my skill.

“I don’t have this scare anymore because of what I learned in Ducati. I have so many references for myself that I can see the situation much better.

“Thanks to this I can really split my mind between, ‘where can be the material [bike], where I am and where I can be’.

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“It’s a good question but thanks to my age and my experience I know that I can trust the project. And almost, I would say wait [for results], because I have enough experience to not lose this confidence.”

Zarco has been able to mix with factory Honda duo Joan Mir and Luca Marini in the opening two rounds of the season and was even the top representative of the Japanese marque in the Qatar Grand Prix.

However, with Honda having not made as much progress as many had expected it to make over the winter, Zarco and his stablemates have been left to scramble for a spot in the lower reaches of the top 15.

But the 33-year-old feels he at least has a fighting chance against his rivals — and in a field that has closed up since his dreadful 2019 campaign with KTM.

“When I was in KTM I was not even able to fight,” he said. “And when I see now, okay it’s a fight for 13th, 14th or 12th position, but now the level of everyone is so close.

“Even if we fight around the 12th position, [it] means something. So doesn’t mean we are out of the game.

“That’s why it’s really something. I’m happy to do this challenge because I will feel that I will not lose control of myself.”

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

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Honda ‘doesn’t know yet what is good to do’ on 2024 MotoGP bike – Zarco

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Despite overhauling its motorcycle for the 2024 season, Honda hasn’t been able to chip its way into the leaders after two rounds of the campaign. Honda’s top result so far is a 12th position, scored by Joan Mir in Portugal and Zarco in Qatar.

After a Portuguese GP in which he struggled to 15th, Zarco says Honda hasn’t stumbled across set-up solutions that work for the bike yet.

“I really trust Honda, I see they are working so hard and at least, step by step, we all know what is not good to do,” he said.

“We don’t know yet what is good to do. But the more we are doing kilometres, the more we know what is not working. So, it will be always useful to go forward.

“For me, this weekend [in Portugal] is like I expected something good, I could not do it, I get more experience, but I could not really get a satisfaction in the feeling.

“So, it was not a weekend where I could enjoy a lot. I enjoyed to be able to fight just a little bit, but as soon as the other ones caught the pace it was not possible. So, this was a bit difficult to live.”

Johann Zarco, Team LCR Honda

Johann Zarco, Team LCR Honda

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Mir’s riding style was highlighted by his Honda peers as the reason for his better pace over the rest of them, but Zarco feels copying this won’t be useful for him.

“It’s more about building the confidence, I would say, because we have different riding styles,” he added.

“It seems mine was working well in Qatar because I could control the situation and then go a bit faster in the end.

“I expected also to do this here [in Portugal], not for a very good position but in this group where Joan was fighting.

“[I thought] maybe I could control here and then save my tyre to push a little bit more in the end. But I was pushing all the race, so that’s why I had nothing left [at the end].”

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