Johann Zarco believes a MotoGP move from LCR Honda to the factory Honda team is "realistic" for 2026 - and so he should.
Zarco has been Honda's biggest success story since the winding down of its Marc Marquez era.
He has proven emphatically worth the two-year contract (and reported salary bump) by virtue of having spearheaded Honda's efforts last year - and he has started 2025 in the same vein.
Honda riders' points since Zarco's arrival
Zarco - 80
Nakagami - 31
Mir - 31
Marini - 24
Bradl - 2
Zarco already had a tentative interest in donning factory Honda colours - which would've been Repsol colours at the time - for 2024, when MotoGP found out Marquez was moving on and a factory seat opened up. But it was quickly decided he and Honda would gladly honour the original commitment to placing him at the satellite LCR team run by Lucio Cecchinello.
The fact factory Honda is no longer the iconic Repsol Honda has seemingly done little to dissuade Zarco's curiosity about finding himself in a factory team again (after the failure of his KTM stint).
His current contract runs out at the end of the year, as does that of Luca Marini in the works team. The only other riders on the grid who aren't contracted for 2026 are Jack Miller at Pramac Yamaha and Zarco's rookie team-mate Somkiat Chantra (thought to be on a one-plus-one).
“I think it’s realistic," said Zarco of a 2026 factory team ride. "We haven’t spoken yet with Honda, and even with Lucio - because Lucio is a part of it. Naturally it would be nice also to stay with Lucio.
"[But] Lucio knows that if I can stay the best Honda rider, there is an opportunity for me [in the factory team] - not to level up what I’m living now, because we have the full support of Honda with Lucio, but just about this prestigious position, to be in the factory team, it's something that I have to think about it.
"It's too early to speak but the first two races give this possibility to think about it. So, I guess we're going to speak about this very soon. But after two races, we just can think and anticipate but not say anything.”
Zarco has earned heavy consideration for the gig. He would deserve it, and it would be a very pleasing outcome. So... here are four reasons why Honda shouldn't do it.
The age
First things first - Zarco's performances so far show no signs of decline, and as long as that continues making too much of his age feels somewhere between inappropriate and cruel.
But when it comes to a contract that would presumably cover 2026 and 2027, there has to be an element of projection, and that element has to account for the fact that Zarco is the oldest rider on the MotoGP grid by nearly three years, that he'll be 35 in July and that there's a chance it will be time for him to move on from MotoGP just one year into the next regulations cycle that begins in 2027.
He was a late bloomer so his MotoGP wear and tear isn't at the level of a Marquez, but even stretching his career towards age 36 and 37 - which he deserves the opportunity to do - would make him something of an outlier within the past decade of MotoGP.
Keeping LCR happy
It hasn't been the easiest couple of years for the factory Honda team, but at least with that came more and more evidence that it has an impressively efficient satellite operation in LCR.
Cecchinello's team put up more than three times the points Repsol Honda did in 2024, and while the once-looming threat of KTM trying to lure LCR away is no longer there - by virtue of KTM being in no position to lure anyone anywhere right now - Cecchinello needs to be kept happy, and both for himself and for his sponsors the presence of Zarco currently clearly does the job.
The Marini question
Zarco has been more productive on the bike than Marini, but Marini wasn't just hired for on-the-bike performance - but for feedback and development acumen.
Honda has generally sounded happy with how that bet was working out through 2024 - so discarding Marini (unless he accepted an LCR gig, which feels possible but is currently fully in the realm of the hypothetical) ahead of the change in regs just feels counter-intuitive.
Marini, for his part, said of this current stretch in light of his contract situation and Zarco's ambition: "It's always the same - like every race, whether you have a contract or not. The thing is to do your best performance, achieve the best result you can. Then let's see in the future."
Have to go all-in
If Marini - or Joan Mir - don't progress into the elite tier (back into the elite tier in Mir's case) in the near future, Honda should be aiming to upgrade.
But it'll then be a case of going big, of 'swinging for the fences'.
Zarco has blossomed wonderfully, but he is not Pedro Acosta - who is well over a decade younger - nor, whisper it, Fabio Quartararo - who is nearly a decade younger and, the way things are going, will be on the 2027 market.
You can reshuffle and uproot your line-up for those two. But it doesn't really make sense to do if you can't get somebody of that level.
As it stands, the ideal scenario for Honda assuming Acosta doesn't somehow become available for 2026 is something like the following: new two-year deal for Zarco at LCR (with maybe a works team option in 2027 as a sweetener), one-year deal for Marini to bring the team in line with the contract cycle. Do that - if you can get everyone to agree - then reassess in a major way for 2027.
That might be less than Zarco deserves. But it's what would make the most sense for Honda.
