LCR believes “extreme” 2025 MotoGP results hindered Johann Zarco

LCR MotoGP team boss Lucio Cecchinello believes Johann Zarco’s “extreme” results at the start of the 2025 season led to him having “too many crashes” trying to replicate them.

The veteran French rider joined the Honda project in 2024 with LCR and quickly emerged as the brand’s leading light, taking its best results of the campaign.

That continued into the start of 2025, with Johann Zarco cracking the top five in Argentina and Qatar, before claiming a historic victory at the French Grand Prix.

He followed that up with a podium at the British Grand Prix, though this proved to be his last top eight finish of the season.

He crashed in three of the next four rounds, while his results dipped as Honda’s bike updates took their time to filter to the LCR team.

Cecchinello believes this led to Zarco not being “100% focused on riding his bike” in the latter part of the season, as he slumped out of the top 10 in the standings to 12th.

“Undoubtedly, we started the season quite good,” the LCR boss said in Valencia.

“Argentina, fifth place, and we finished fourth in Qatar, we won Le Mans, second at Silverstone.

“So, the first part of the season was really, really good for us, above our expectations.

“At a certain point, we were fifth in the championship ranking. So, we really enjoyed it.

“The reality is that in the second half of the season, we started to struggle.

“I think there are several expectations about that.

“Basically, because of the very good results in Le Mans and Silverstone, these kinds of results were extreme and influenced by the weather conditions, because also at Silverstone we had a very, very cold day, and not every rider could feel good with the front tyre.

“But when you enter the podium, you really strive to achieve other top results, and eventually, Johann started to have too many crashes.

“So, those crashes didn’t help us.

“Also Honda produced some very good development parts, and we needed to wait some weeks to get them delivered.

“And this created a little bit of disappointment, and he wasn’t 100% focused on riding his bike.”

Despite this, Zarco earned a new two-year deal with Honda through to the end of 2027, which will see him maintain factory support from the Japanese brand.