Johann Zarco: “Joan Mir did a fantastic race” for Honda podium

Johann Zarco was quick to congratulate fellow Honda rider Joan Mir after the Spaniard joined Zarco in achieving a podium finish, at Motegi on Sunday.

Zarco remains the leading Honda rider in the world championship, in tenth, headlined by a victory at Le Mans and a podium at Silverstone.

But since round seven, momentum has swung towards the factory HRC team of Luca Marini and Mir, partly due to the arrival of RCV upgrades.

Zarco returned to the top ten in Japan, but Mir grabbed the limelight with the factory team’s first Grand Prix podium since Marc Marquez at the same circuit in 2023.

“Mir did a fantastic race today,” said Zarco. “I’m very glad for him that he got the podium and it’s a good motivation for us to find a good setup. Because I feel the confidence is taking time to recover.”

“He was super fast this weekend, from the qualifying, almost making pole position.

“And when you start in the first row and have enough speed to stay with the top guys for the first half of the race, then the second half is almost easy. So he was in a perfect position to reach the podium and he took this opportunity.”

Zarco, who qualified eleventh, chased countryman Fabio Quartararo for most of the race, but couldn’t make a pass on the Yamaha for what would have been eighth position.

“Very pleased with this ninth position. It’s a big relief to score points because since Austria, I could not reach the end of the races and this was very hard to manage,” he said.

“Today, the feeling on the bike was good enough to fight for the top ten. I can see that I was missing a bit of speed to stay with Raul Fernandez and be close to the top 7. 

"But at least I did a nice race behind Fabio Quartararo.

“I tried to be as close as possible to overtake him, but I could not give more and I think I was a bit stressed on the bike. 

"Because one of the first targets was to finish, just to score points and make a certain reset to get back the confidence and try to build up good results through these overseas races.”

Zarco was also using the latest Honda parts in Motegi.

“Since I tried the new bike, there is a good performance. We can make good lap times and overall be quite constant.”