Johann Zarco regained his confidence in Malaysia, but could only admit that he was far from the pace of Joan Mir, who was aiming for the podium before his crash.
After four complicated Grand Prix, John Zarco is having a much more positive weekend, enough to boost his morale and make him believe in a good end to the season. The French rider has indeed been going through a difficult period since this summer, with ten crashes in races and many more with those occurring during testing. Having lost confidence on the RC213V, he gradually rebuilt it, until returning to the top 10 this weekend in Malaysia.
Managed to automatically move into Q2 yesterday, he qualified ninth this morning, before making a good start in the sprint race and gaining one position. Halfway through the race he lost two, before recovering them due to the collision between Luca Marini and Pol Espargaró and thus crossed the finish line in eighth position.
A result that did not fully satisfy the Frenchman, who saw Joan Mir put in a very solid race at the front, and who had the pace for the podium before his crash. Luca Marini also showed more speed before his error. Nevertheless, zarco finished as the best Honda representative and scored points, something he hadn't done in a sprint race since the Catalan Grand Prix at the beginning of September.
"I enjoyed the start of the race. Then I did a really good job, I'm just a little disappointed that I lacked the pace to stay with the top 6, I would say, or the top 7.", he declared on the microphone of MotoGP.com. "Mir was really impressive, he could overtake and I wasn't able to do it so I'm a little disappointed about that."
"Afterwards, all lap after lap, I struggled with the balance of the bike. I hope that tomorrow I'll feel better on used tires to enjoy the race more and be more competitive. I was able to benefit from the other guys' crashes to score two points today, which is good, but while my confidence is back on the bike, I haven't yet got the rhythm, so I need to find it for Sunday."
Malaysian Grand Prix Sprint Race Results :
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
