Johann Zarco ‘thought I would be sadder’ at end of first Honda MotoGP year
“It’s more positive than what I expected”
LCR’s Johann Zarco admits he ‘thought I would be sadder’ at the end of his first MotoGP season on the Honda than he actually was.
The one-time MotoGP race winner swapped the best bike on the grid in the Ducati for a two-year factory contract with Honda, beginning in 2024, to ride for LCR.
Read more: How Honda found its true MotoGP leader in 2024
Though it won a race in 2023, Honda’s results dropped off a cliff across the campaign, while the bike’s poor form led to Marc Marquez departing at the end of the season to join the Gresini Ducati squad.
Though 2024 was Honda’s third winless season in the last five, Zarco emerged as its strongest rider and showed well in the second half of the year.
Regularly a Q2 contender, Zarco also scored Honda’s best result of the year with eighth in Thailand as he was able to extract the most out of numerous bike updates.
He ended the year as Honda’s top rider in 17th in the standings on 55 points.
Reflecting on his first year with HRC, Zarco admits 12 months prior he expected to be feeling worse about his season than he does.
“It’s more positive than what I expected, if I have to analyse this end of the season,” Zarco said last November in Barcelona.
“And also my feeling, I felt one year ago I would have been more sad and I’m much happier than what I expected.
“So, that’s good. It came when I began to do better results in Indonesia, and then when I could repeat these results and then I could work on my riding style.
“And this work was giving answers on the track, so this gave me more motivation that I’ve opened new doors that I’m sure I can get very strong, discovering these new things.”
Zarco remains with LCR for the 2025 season in a largely unchanged line-up for Honda, with its factory team roster of Joan Mir and Luca Marini also staying put.
Somkiat Chantra will step up from Moto2 to the second LCR seat alongside Zarco for his rookie season, as he replaces Takaaki Nakagami.
Nakagami has moved over to Honda’s test team alongside Aleix Espargaro.
