The French driver has regained a certain level on the Honda, enough to reassure him before starting a new adventure.
If everything seems to indicate that Johann zarco will drive for the Avintia team in 2020, nothing has been officially announced yet. What is certain, however, is that the French driver's experience on the Honda has unlocked things after a very complicated season with KTM, and that this can only be beneficial for the future.
In the middle of the Valencia Grand Prix, he spoke about the return of certain sensations that he had lost for several months and which reassured him. “I feel like I need to put back confidence and automatisms on the bike that aren’t there yet”, he explained then. “ By the time we spend doing something, we have already turned the corner. On the Yamaha I had automatic mechanisms which led me to ride fast and now I feel that that could work just as well. Not with the same technique but the bike responds like in Australia and Malaysia so we don't lose our work areas. »
“I prefer not to compare with the bike I had this year (the KTM, editor's note), because as soon as I tried to at least find rhythm I was on the ground and here I am not and that's great. When I go into the corners I still think about what I have to do, it's not my body that does it automatically. It comes but we save time when it becomes automatic. I'm happy to feel it and get back on this path because I can take it again since I'm there. »
However, although his adventure with KTM did not turn out positively, the number 5 admits that it would have been difficult for him to be fast with the Honda without having gone through the RC16: “Perhaps not, because I would have suffered more from telling myself “I don’t have my feelings”, and now I know that it’s possible”, he commented. “It taught me [things]. It made me lose my level a little but at least it opened me up. There I arrived, I had to ride a motorcycle without having time to really adjust it but knowing that it has potential, and I would never have known how to do it before. Now I wasn't in front but I wasn't last either. »
Although neither of them ended up as he wanted, these experiences helped Zarco to progress in his riding and his mentality, and there is no doubt that this will be very beneficial to him on the Ducati, which he should normally inherit at Avintia.
