“When it’s tough, it can also be cool” – Honda’s underdog, France’s hero, Johann Zarco has found joy, calmness and redemption in MotoGP’s toughest seat
Few gave Johann Zarco a shot at a rich late career run when he announced he was leaving Pramac Ducati at the close of 2023 to join the ailing Honda. After failing to piece together a proper title challenge on the grid’s best bike, the Frenchman was willing to jump aboard the grid’s worst. The last time he experienced that, during a doomed stay at KTM in 2019, it didn’t end so well.
Yet fast forward 20 months and Zarco has been Honda’s most consistent performer. His highs in that time are beyond anything he could have anticipated through the dark months of 2024. What’s more, he’s been a calm and mature presence as HRC gradually finds its feet after years in the wilderness.
Here, the Frenchman tells AMCN why he’s enjoying racing more than ever before, how Honda could eventually re-take its place as MotoGP’s top dog in the near future, and his desire to be remembered like a certain Italian triple world champion from the 1970s…
This is your 17th season racing in the GP paddock. Would you say you enjoy racing more now than when you were younger?
I’m enjoying it more now. Everything around racing is just better than when I started. I was feeling more pressure then. Now I know I’m competitive. I have more confidence in myself and this helps me to enjoy it more. Also, getting used to racing a MotoGP bike is just magic. I’m still growing my skills.
Since you came to Honda, you’ve adopted a patient and mature approach. Did you know before joining this is what the project required?
Yes, I knew it was going to be a very different challenge to what I was used to with Ducati. That’s also why I signed for two years. I wanted these years to give me time to build something. It was impossible to get this with Ducati. They have the best bike and there are so many riders who want it. This meant a pressure that was difficult to handle. It doesn’t give the rider time to take a step back and do things in a different way to grow up. I had this opportunity with Honda.
I knew I had to accept enjoying it even in the tough moments. I learnt to do it because last year we were not competitive. But I could take pleasure in that challenge. Obviously, sometimes that frustration was there and I could be angry – that’s normal. When you’re a competitor you can’t be satisfied if you don’t get the result you wish. I wasn’t holding this frustration, so it was a different challenge. To be able to take the topic in a different way and enjoy those moments, the good ones came by themselves. The podiums I got now. When I signed with Lucio (Cecchinello, LCR Honda MotoGP team owner), we said the target was to win. But you aren’t obsessed by it because it seems impossible. But it’s never impossible! It seems we didn’t have to catch it, but it came to us – and that’s fantastic.
How is Johann Zarco different in 2025 than 2019 when you had just joined KTM?
Now I have more experience, and more capacity to do different things on the bike and understand what’s happening. This is a big difference. I could have done better work at KTM in that time. Also, at Honda I’m less stressed if I’m not performing because I have the feeling that I had performance before with Ducati. I don’t need to prove anything. This pressure to always want to prove you can do it was, in my mind, proved enough with Ducati. Let’s see what’s coming with Honda.
In the KTM time, what I did with Yamaha still wasn’t enough – even if I had two world titles in Moto2. I don’t feel I have to prove, and this helps a lot with how to control the emotion when things get bad. When it’s good, it’s easy to be calm. But when it’s getting tricky is when you have to stay calm.
You’ve started working with a mental coach and ex-Olympian swimmer Gregory Mallet. How has this affected you?
It helps me. He didn’t win an Olympic Games, but he won some medals (two-time silver medallist). But he taught me to change the speech in my mind; to be more positive and to enjoy it even when it’s tough. That was very interesting and one of two steps. Also, to accept that when it’s tough, it can also be cool.
We’re now a few months on from your victory at Le Mans. Has that whole experience properly sunk in?
I think about it more when I’m speaking about it with my parents or some friends. For example, in Mugello I have three friends I went to school with. Now we’re not living in the same place so they’re coming here. Maybe we see each other once a year. We were speaking about this moment. When I spoke about it, I had this feeling like, ‘Wow, it really happened!’
Every day I really try to enjoy the moment now. Or take it, whether it’s positive or negative; when it’s done, it’s done. This is my mentality. I still have this feeling that I’m so happy and feel so lucky that I believe this. It’s really unique the way people remember this. Even now in Italy if someone sees me in the supermarket, they say, “Wow, Le Mans was fantastic.” French people, yes. But when I’m in another country, if they see Zarco, they think about the victory in France. That’s cool.
How have you seen Honda’s MotoGP project evolve since you joined at the end of 2023?
When I signed with them, I thought this is the first constructor in the world. There is enough money to develop the bike; they have the power to do it. Then I hope they can bring the right ideas to develop the bike and compete against Gigi Dall’Igna – even more than Ducati, it’s against Gigi. Those were the points to go into the project with a positive mind.
Last year I could feel we were so far that I was really thinking, ‘Can it be good?’ I didn’t know. Finally, when it got better at the beginning of this season, I realised we aren’t so far away. The way Honda is approaching this category, sometimes I feel that once we get it, we’ll hold it and be so strong. We are preparing things that when it’ll work, it’ll be better than the others. I feel this and I hope I’m right. That’s why I’m curious to continue with Honda.
When I signed for two years in the middle of 2023, I was really thinking it could be the last two years. And it could be the beginning of the end. But no. During 2024, it was the beginning of something new, something different. We’re on the way to continuing and that’s so cool.
Would it be the end of the world if you didn’t get a seat in Honda’s factory team and stayed in LCR for 2026?
Clearly not the end of the world. We try to manage things with my agent. Honestly, speaking with Lucio, I want to have this position of the number one rider within Honda. But we are speaking that this could be possible even in the LCR team. We’re working on the fact of being the number one rider in Honda but staying with LCR because all the group is good. We have the same sponsor with Castrol also. We’re on the way. Maybe I can be a factory rider. I feel like one already. That’s why choosing to be with LCR would be cool.
So, number one rider means the first to test new things…
Yeah, clearly. Every time get two bikes in the box at the best. There are the regulations with the engine, that if you break one, you have to save some sessions and sacrifice kilometres. These things can happen if you’re a satellite rider or factory rider. But to make sure all of these details are even better controlled, to get more free mind when I go on track in every session.
You’re a keen musician and like playing the guitar and piano. You also ride a lot on the road. Do you have time to keep up with your pursuits while being a MotoGP rider?
No. Playing music, yes, but I’m playing what I know. I’d like to take time to enjoy a different instrument or improve my skills on guitar and piano to enjoy it even more than now, as I feel my limits. Yet if I learn a new song, it’s when I have the time – but I don’t push myself. It’s coming by itself. Then, with a motorbike, I’m using it on the streets but it’s to gain time. Every city now has traffic jams, so I’m always looking at the time; I cannot lose it! Doing a big tour with friends, clearly this doesn’t exist yet. This could come later, or even some big event because I will remain famous at least in France. So if I do a road trip it will be organised to see the people, sponsors. All the things that now sponsors would like, I say I can’t. I say, let’s do it later when I have time for you.
Between MotoGP races, you were in Japan testing for the Suzuka 8 Hour, so time is precious…
Too precious. As an athlete you need to train every day – not hard, but to keep your body as fit as possible. There are moments you have to train, and moments to rest. Just the MotoGP calendar now is tricky. But when you add trips to Japan, it seems I’m not even training as an athlete lately, and I hate this! I know I have enough of a margin to still feel good. But if I want to progress, I need to select as well as possible. When you progress, you need to select better to perform, to feel good.
After your Le Mans triumph, you were aware that you were the first Frenchman to win a home GP in the premier class since Pierre Monneret in 1954. You also said you’re a keen follower of the history of the sport. So how would you like Johann Zarco to be remembered when you retire?
I’m very proud of all these races I’m doing. I’m just focused on doing races and then when I see the total, I’ve got those numbers – which weren’t easy to get. We all want to be big champions like Giacomo Agostini, Valentino Rossi, Marc Marquez – the people winning races and titles. But I said to myself I’d like to be like Walter Villa! He’s not famous like Max Biaggi. But he has three titles in 250s. I remember I said to myself, ‘Nobody really knows him. But three world titles. Wow!’ I’d like to be this kind of rider – people don’t know too much about them, but the people in the paddock want a guy like this. ‘Ah, yeah, maybe I wasn’t able to win all the races, but we could count on Johann because he was always fast enough.’ I feel now people have this in mind.
At least I’ve got two, and finally I’m more famous than Walter Villa because I did better races in the top category. To be famous and even be rich you have to perform in MotoGP. Now I have this! Just this fact to be world champion, I got this two times in Moto2 and I’m so happy for this.
The passionate people can remember that Zarco is not only good now. Ten years ago, he was world champion. So, it means already 10 years ago he was already a good one. That’s good to remember and kind of my reference.
