MotoGP: Johann Zarco gives up joining the Honda team

Frenchman Johann Zarco has given up on joining the official Honda MotoGP team, where one handlebar is free after the departure of Marc Marquez, and will ride in the LCR satellite team for the next two seasons, he announced on Thursday .

“We preferred to give priority to LCR quite simply because the Honda project proposed to Johann did not meet our expectations. It’s a decision on our part because there was interest from Honda,” Guillaume Valladeau, the driver’s agent, explained to AFP.

“I think it’s the best decision. The official team is good, but if all the conditions are not met, there is not necessarily any interest,” he added. Zarco (33 years old) signed up with LCR last August for two years and an optional third after refusing to extend with Ducati-Pramac, where he had been playing since 2021 and which offered him to ride for another year in MotoGP then to compete in the Superbike championship.

But the premature departure of Marquez, six-time Moto GP world champion with Honda, for the satellite team Ducati-Gresini, had reshuffled the cards. The Frenchman then declared that he would like to join the official Japanese team to succeed the Spaniard.

“Of course, I really thought that I would be this natural candidate but I see that there are many other reasons why it did not come naturally,” explained Zarco this Thursday before the GP of Australia, played this weekend at Phillip Island. “That’s why I prefer to say let me do a good job with Lucio (Cecchinello, LCR boss). It's rewarding to be in the factory team, but not to be there just because the handlebars are free. I have to be there because they want it,” concluded the Avignon resident.

Zarco, who is competing in his seventh season in MotoGP after winning two world titles in Moto2 (2015, 2016), has scored 19 podiums in the premier motorcycling category, including four this year. He is currently ranked 7th in the provisional world championship rankings.