At the end of this fabulous Australian Grand Prix, Johann Zarco acquired the title of Rookie of the Year, or, in French, the title of best beginner in the MotoGP category.
This is obviously a good thing since there were four of them competing at the start of the year, with alex rins on a factory Suzuki, as well as Jonas Folger et Sam Lowes who had given the French rider a hard time in Moto2…
The rest, we know it: Sam Lowes took the record for falls before acclimatizing to the premier category, alex rins got injured and missed five grands prix, and, race after race, Jonas Folger was never really able to endanger the advantage acquired by force of the wrist by Johann zarco, even if he particularly shone during his home Grand Prix in Germany.
And for those who might believe that, in these conditions, this title is a little devalued, like that of Tito Rabat in 2016, where the Spanish rider was the only Rookie in MotoGP, the number of points the French rider already acquired with two Grand Prix remaining, 138, places him above Mika Kallio (71) Cal Crutchlow (70) Stefan bradl (135) Espargaro Pol (136) Maverick Vinales (97) et Tito Rabat (29)
In recent years, only Ben Spies (176) Jorge Lorenzo (190) and of course Marc Márquez (334) did better.
The Tech3 driver has therefore perfectly fulfilled the only objective he had set for himself at the start of the year, and is even starting to look towards the title of first driver of an independent team, since he currently occupies the first position there. .
This seemed unlikely at the start of the year, particularly with three riders with real factory bikes, Danilo Petrucci, Cal Crutchlow et Alex Espargaro. The latter are currently respectively 27, 35 and 76 points behind the fiery number 5!
Not bad, for an overly old rider refused by Suzuki, whose two starters are far behind him, right?
