In MotoGP, there is a “Johann Zarco enigma”. In seven seasons in the premier category, the French driver of the Pramac team has climbed to the podium sixteen times in the world championship, but never on the top step. And the question comes up like a refrain: will the one whose fluid style is admired by his peers finally win?
After a good start to the season, Johann Zarco arrives at Le Mans, where the French Grand Prix takes place, with qualifying and the sprint race on Saturday May 13, with legitimate ambitions. Despite his fall in Spain, in Jerez, on April 30, he showed the pack of young wolves that he remains one of the fastest in the elite. Even if, at 32, he is well aware of approaching the twilight of his career. “I don’t have ten years ahead of me”he summarizes.
The Cannes native is the second oldest driver in the paddock, behind Spaniard Aleix Espargaro, a year his senior. A canonical age in speed motorcycling. In the history of the discipline, only one thirty-year-old has succeeded in becoming world champion: the Italian Valentino Rossi, who won the last of his nine world titles in 2009, at the age of 30.
Johann Zarco knows he has experience on his side. “Since my debut in MotoGP, I have improved, especially in brakinghe explains. But the competition became incredibly tight, with sometimes eighteen drivers in the same second during qualifying. To win a Grand Prix, everything must be perfect on D-Day: the engine, the chassis, the tyres, the driver, the team…”
“Perhaps he lacks a touch of madnessadvances Sébastien Poirier, the president of the French Motorcycling Federation. He has a cerebral side, he intellectualizes a lot. That may explain why he often missed his starts. He is not the type to go into “berserk” mode, to take all the risks without worrying about the other competitors. » An analysis that the person concerned confirms half-wordly, even if he considers to have “successful all his starts this season”.
“At Pramac, he is happy, it shows”
On April 2, he placed 2e of the Argentine Grand Prix, after taking eight seconds from the winner of the day, Marco Bezzecchi, 24, in the last eight laps, on a track wet with drizzle. One week earlier, at the Portuguese Grand Prix, he had a thunderous end of the race, overtaking three competitors, to fail at the foot of the podium (4e).
In both cases, his team – a Ducati satellite team, which allows Johann Zarco to benefit from the best current machine on the board – had let their joy burst upon arrival. “At Pramac, he is happy, it shows. Johann has an “old school” side. The older he gets, the more importance he attaches to human relationships.argues Hervé Poncharal, the boss of the GasGas-Tech 3 formation, with which he started in MotoGP in 2017.
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