ZARCO BLAMES Q2 GRID PENALTY AND A LATE STURT AFTER MISANO RACE DISAPPOINTMENT

Johann Zarco’s Misano weekend on the LCR Honda ended with frustration after a penalty, a late fight for points, and a crash three laps from the finish. The French rider qualified 11th on Saturday, then crossed the line 10th in the Sprint, earning no championship points but finishing as the second-best Honda rider behind Luca Marini.

The situation changed on Sunday. Zarco started the Grand Prix from 14th after being penalised for an incident at the start of Q2, when he held up Marco Bezzecchi on a fast lap. Zarco acknowledged the mistake and accepted the consequences, explaining that he was moved back three grid places for the race.

After the start, he dropped another position and was running 13th early on. The opening laps were chaotic, with Bezzecchi eventually forced out, and that reshuffled the order. From there, Zarco’s pace improved: after Pecco Bagnaia crashed at the beginning of the sixth lap, Zarco found himself in the top 10. He was then passed by Enea Bastianini a few laps later and settled into an 11th-place rhythm for a long stretch.

With the race still alive, Zarco looked set to bring home points. He was overtaken in lap 21 by KTM rider Brad Binder, but the overall picture still suggested he could salvage something from Misano. However, the final phase turned into disappointment when Zarco crashed in Turn 8 with three laps remaining.

Speaking about the fall, Zarco described a braking misjudgement at the corner: “In Turn 8 I missed the braking point a bit and then I went wide. I tried to steer back in, but the bike slipped away. I couldn’t prevent the crash.” He added that with only three laps left he had been aiming to fight for the top 10, and that the biggest regret of his race was not being able to pass Fabio Quartararo.

Zarco said he believed he had the pace to follow Quartararo when Bastianini was behind him, but that overtaking was difficult: “The biggest mistake in my race was that I couldn’t overtake Fabio. When Bastianini was behind him, I knew he would lose a lot of time. If I look at my pace, I believe I could have followed him. I had a bit more in the pocket than Fabio, but overtaking him was too difficult.”

He also pointed to a broader issue with his current ability to attack. Zarco explained that when he tries to force the pace, he loses too much time and struggles to stay on the racing line: “On track I’m missing some important things that give me the possibility to be close enough and try an attack. If I attack now, I lose too much time and I come off the line. That was the problem on Sunday.” In addition, he noted the effect of spending too long behind another rider: “If you stay behind someone for a long time, the temperature in the tyres goes up—then you lose feeling and also speed gets worse.”

Reflecting on the full weekend, Zarco said he was disappointed with the results despite feeling that the bike’s performance and speed were strong. He recalled that on Friday he got off to a good start, but on Saturday qualifying only delivered 11th, and he couldn’t improve during the second run. “The penalty then made everything even worse,” he said. “I didn’t score points this weekend, but on the bike I had a very good performance and good speed. It’s a shame, and I hope it goes better in Austria.”

Misano also came after Zarco’s return from injury: he had only returned at the end of August in Aragon after missing three and a half months. On the physical side, he said his leg was fine on the demanding circuit, but the arm pump caused problems. “I knew it was a demanding track. I can’t complain about the leg—it didn’t cause issues. The arm pump was what bothered me, but that’s part of the game,” he said.

Ultimately, Zarco’s clearest takeaway was that if he had managed to pass Quartararo, his race would have been easier and better. “If I could have overtaken Fabio, my race would have been a lot easier and much better,” he concluded.