MotoGP: Aragon masterclass from Johann Zarco

Johann Zarco rode to an excellent P5 at the Teruel round, overtaking Miguel Oliveira in the dying moments of the race.

Johann Zarco was Ducati’s saving grace at the Teruel round, beating all the other Ducati’s by a large margin, Petrucci was only able to take P10 whilst Dovizioso and Rabat took P13 and P14 respectively whilst Pecco Bagnaia crashed and Jack Miller was punted off by a KTM cannonball of Brad Binder at Turn 2 on lap 1 of the race.

Zarco was riding in the podium positions at the start of the race but was unable to match the pace of his competitors ahead of him and dropped a couple of positions to Mir, Marquez, Espargaro and Oliveira which he re-took late into the race, the GP19 very clearly performing better at Motorland Aragon, backed up by Jack Miller’s podium here a year ago, also on the GP19.

Speaking on the race to MotoGP.com, Zarco said, “It was a good race, I followed Morbidelli and rins but they were a few tenths faster and could not comfortably follow them.

I could not follow Joan Mir when he overtook me, but then Alex Marquez overtook me and I thought that he would be a good guy to follow and slipstream, but he had a crash so I was alone.”

It is more than likely that with the pace of Alex Marquez, he would’ve been able to drag Zarco up to the front guys and we may have seen a more competitive race with Zarco excelling on the straights and struggling in the corners, but being able to brake very late to overcome this problem.

“Pol and Miguel caught me but I had good energy to fight again for this.

Starting in fifth position meant I could keep a high pace, it’s good that I can be faster than the other Ducati [GP20’s] today.”

Let’s hope he can keep this form up in 2021 on the GP21 which will be nearly identical to the GP20 following the testing and upgrade restrictions in place due to COVID19.

Featured image – www.motogp.com