MotoGP, Zarco: "If Oliveira hadn't crashed we wouldn't have stopped"

His second day astride the Honda was a rather particular day for Johann Zarco. The Frenchman, returning to the paddock with Lucio Cecchinello team colors to sub for Taka Nakagami, is making his début on a new bike on an extremely complicated track which, to make things worse, is not providing even a minimum amount of consistency, given the fact that on these two days, the available laps in “normal” weather conditions have been few and far between. The cherry on the top was this afternoon with FP4 suspended after a few minutes and Q1 and Q2 moved to tomorrow morning.

“The asphalt conditions weren’t bad - Zarco said - The problem was the strong wind. When you see these conditions, you realize that it’s right to stop, but if Oliveira hadn’t crashed, we wouldn’t have decided to cancel the afternoon.”

So, Oliveira’s crash changed everything?

“Yes, it made us think. You couldn’t set up the corners well, you had to stay much farther on the inside, especially on turn 1. They were not normal conditions, but I wasn’t doing too badly.”

Were you all in agreement on stopping and moving the qualifiers to tomorrow?

“Some riders wanted to continue the schedule - Zarco commented - others didn’t, including myself at first, but the majority decided. Tomorrow morning we’ll see what the conditions are and decide whether or not to go out on the track.”

The situation is probably even more difficult for you since this is your first contact with a new bike. How is it going?

“The conditions today did not let me push and continue my learning curve with the bike - the Frenchman concluded - but in any case, on the laps I did, I felt better than yesterday. The bike has great potential and Márquez exploits it best. On my part, today I was under any great pressure and if we race tomorrow, I think I can take home a good result.”

Audio collected by Paolo Scalera