2019 will not go down in history as a great year for Johann, who is currently continuing his Austrian journey in eighteenth position in the provisional World Championship standings with 22 points, or 228 points behind the leader. Marc Márquez, and 4 points behind Miguel Oliveira and his RC16 from the Tech3 team.
His best result was tenth place in Barcelona, and in qualifying third place in Brno. Misano will mark Johann's 186th Grand Prix, the 48th in MotoGP, a category where he achieved 4 pole positions and 4 fastest laps in the race, and reached the podium six times. And we will remember in the current difficult period his two World Champion titles obtained in Moto2 in 2015 and 2016.
Since the start of the season, encouraging performances have been rare, and the recent tests at Misano on August 29 and 30 did not bring extraordinary results. Johann leaving KTM at the end of the year, the Austrian team decided to only ride him on the first day, preferring to entrust the 2020 bike the next day to its new tester Dani Pedrosa.
Johann finished these tests in nineteenth position, 2.051 behind the leader. fabio quartararo, but his teammate Pol Espargaró was not doing much better with eighteenth position at the end of the two days, at 1.884.
Zarco won in Moto2 at Misano in 2015, after finishing second in 125cc in 3. In MotoGP, he finished fifteenth in 2011 and tenth last year.
According to Johann zarco, who are " I only did one day of testing because KTM had to test the new features for the 2020 bike with Pedrosa. »
“I am calm about my future because I have people around me who advise me, at the moment there is nothing really close. I need to figure out what I would like to do. I work on several fronts. »
“Physically, I'm fine, I have no problems at the moment. Two weeks of rest were important to catch my breath. »
“The testing was important because it is a very difficult circuit and different from Silverstone and the Red Bull Ring. During testing, I realized that I needed to do simple things to perform well. These tests were my best days since the start of the season, in terms of time and position in the standings. »
“I approached the bike with a new philosophy to try to go fast, I don't need to think too much and even if I'm not comfortable I have to try to do my best. I didn't try the new tires during testing, they certainly would have been good qualifying tires but not racing tires. It was important to test the tires ahead of this weekend in order to have all the data and arrive here in Misano prepared. »
Misano test results:
Reference times:
Test record: 1'31.629 by Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati) in 2018
Lap record: 1'32.678 by Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) in 2018
Best top speed: 299,5 km/h for Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) in 2015
Provisional ranking of the World Championship:
1 Marc MÁRQUEZ–Honda 250 points
2 Andrea DOVIZIOSO–Ducati 172
3 Alex RINS–Suzuki 149
4 Danilo PETRUCCI–Ducati 145
5 Maverick VIÑALES–Yamaha 118
6 Valentino ROSSI–Yamaha 116
7 Jack MILLER–Ducati 94
8 Fabio QUARTARARO–Yamaha 92
9 Cal CRUTCHLOW–Honda 88
10 Franco MORBIDELLI–Yamaha 69
11 Pol ESPARGARÓ–KTM 68
12 Takaaki NAKAGAMI–Honda 62
13 Joan MIR–Suzuki 39
14 Aleix ESPARGARÓ–Aprilia 33
15 Francesco BAGNAIA–Ducati 29
16 Andrea IANNONE–Aprilia 27
17 Miguel OLIVEIRA–KTM 26
18 Johann ZARCO–KTM 22
19 Jorge LORENZO–Honda 21
20 Stefan BRADL–Honda 16
21 Tito RABAT–Ducati 14
22 Michele PIRRO–Ducati 9
23 Sylvain GUINTOLI–Suzuki 7
24 Hafizh SYAHRIN–KTM 6
25 Karel ABRAHAM–Ducati 5
Photos © Lukas Leitner and Philip Platzer for KTM
