MotoGP, Zarco benefits from red flag but feels he could have achieved much more

Johann Zarco was undoubtedly one of the men under the spotlights today, and everything went all OK. The Frenchman's (first) race started as announced from the pit lane, but that didn't stop him from making up position after position.

“The plan of the first race was to set myself a pace and move up slowly. It took me five or six laps to get to the group: I think the official who was supposed to start me must have been sleeping, since it took him so long”.

Then came the red flag, a panacea for Zarco, and the subsequent restart, which allowed the Frenchman to finish 14th.

“I undoubtedly benefited from the red flag. After 15 laps, I began to feel the pain, while at the second start the adrenaline helped me get back into shape, which surprised me since I was very worried yesterday. I didn't take painkillers because I wanted to have full control over my hand. I wouldn’t say these were the two hardest points of my career because last year I got similar results and struggled a lot more".

Faced with a race of this type, Zarco obviously has something to recriminate, seeing as without penalties he could (perhaps) have been one of the contenders for the podium.

“Without injury and without a penalty I would have started from the front row, and I don't know where I could have finished. Yesterday I was surprised by my speed, as I was almost faster injured than healthy, but I learned a lot of useful things over the course of the weekend ”.

So many things to learn, and something to fix in order to be really ready to obtain results of a certain level…

 "Currently my weak point is being effective in a group. I feel comfortable on the bike and I am fast on my own, but in a group, I struggle to be the same in the fight in a group. In the final stages I fought with Fabio, I was strong on the straight and he was strong in braking, and in the end, I couldn’t beat him even though I felt stronger "

It is also impossible not to mention Zarco's cautious "return" to turn 2 during the race…

"I had the chance to pass there three times and I did, but I closed the throttle slightly as the bike was moving a lot and I couldn’t lean as I wanted, so for this reason they passed me at turn 3 under braking. In that corner I also did everything to stay on the left, and also for this reason I suffered some overtaking ”.