Johann Zarco is keen to take the positives from Sunday’s Styrian Grand Prix despite his pit lane start penalty, saying he was able to learn more because he experienced “two races in one day”.
The Avintia Ducati rider was sent to pit lane for Sunday’s race after a high-speed collision with Franco Morbidelli the week prior, despite an excellent qualifying performance that meant he secured a front row start for the second time in only three races.
The qualifying performance was made even more impressive by the fact that he sat out Friday’s practice sessions for the inaugural Styrian Grand Prix as he recovered from surgery after breaking the scaphoid bone in his throttle wrist in the previous weekend’s fall.
Despite being able to put together an impressive qualifying lap on Saturday by relying on experience gained the previous weekend, Zarco admitted after Sunday’s performance – where he finished 14th – that he doubted before the race whether he would even be able to finish it until the red flags came out at the half-way point.
“I was really wondering after the warm-up what I could do. I knew that I could do ten laps and then I didn’t know how the wrist would be, so I was lucky to get the red flag because I did fifteen laps and the pain was coming up,” said Zarco.
“I thought that starting from pit lane anyway meant that if I had pain, I would do my penalty and give up – but no, it was great.
“In the restart, the adrenaline was so great that I almost didn’t feel my wrist at all, and I was able to have a cool fight with Fabio. We have two points now instead of nothing, and it’s a good way to sleep well after the race.”
The red flag didn’t just give Zarco a chance for a mid-race breather. Restarting from 17th on the grid rather than pit lane and immediately able to get stuck into the battle for the points, he told The Race afterward that the two-part battle means he’s been able to figure out where he’s strong on the Ducati and where he still needs to work.
“My pace in race one was interesting,” said Zarco.
“They waited so long to give me the start – I saw the other guys pass and then I was waiting, waiting, waiting until they said go. I needed six laps to catch up with Tito, who was second last at that moment. But when I got the red flag, I was able to rest the wrist and put some ice on it.
“I’m happy with the experience from the first start and the second. In the first one, I had to find my pace and catch up to the guys lap by lap and in the second I was able to fight in the group – and that is totally not the same way of riding.
“I understand now that I can be very fast, but when I’m in a group I still have too many weak points that I need to recover.
“When I learn to manage this, I think I can really fight at the top even if occasionally I lose a position. I’m happy for this, both because I got to experience two races in one day and because I didn’t have to do only ten laps and then maybe stop.”
And while there’s never a good time to get injured, Zarco picked possibly the best time in MotoGP’s intense and compressed season.
He is now able to benefit from the only two-weekend break of the year to rest and recover and says his plan is to take it easy ahead of the Misano double-header next month.
“My plan now is to just rest my wrist. Even before the race, I was thinking about taking some stronger medication, but I wanted to keep the feeling in my wrist so that I could see where it was going,” said Zarco.
“I didn’t want to feel nothing and destroy my recovery for the next two weeks – I understand my body a little and I didn’t want to make the bone worse than it was.
“I don’t know if they gave me a painkiller or just an anti-inflammatory, but I took that from the doctors in the morning and then just paracetamol before the race. In the next few days, I’ll take that to still feel good and train just with running and not on a bike now.
“I was supposed to ride my Panigale, but I can’t risk it – I really need to take the best from my wrist in these two weeks. For two days, I’ve done what I shouldn’t have if I had thought like a doctor.”
Zarco is also hoping to draw a line under last weekend’s drama at turn two and three, after a clean weekend without any further incident to blot his copybook.
He is not afraid to still get stuck in and utilise his aggressive riding style, Morbidelli was one of the riders who was quick to praise Zarco for nonetheless racing in a better way than seven days previously after the pair once again battled it out.
“I was a little but shy in turn two, but I think everyone was, not just me,” said Morbidelli.
“I saw Johann making similar overtakes to the one he made on me there, but he was keeping a tighter line – before going in he was rolling off and keeping more of a margin. I think every rider was more careful in that corner after the accident.
“He overtook me in turn nine cleanly – he braked, put the bike on the inside of me, and did it cleanly, much better than last week!
“I was hoping that he wasn’t going to try again in turn two because I saw him coming and clearly he had better pace, and I wondered where he was going to pass me. But it was very clean, so congratulations to him; he did a clean job!”
