Zarco ‘coming back to a good feeling’

Johann Zarco says the post-Czech Republic round test acted as further opportunity to regain his confident feeling with the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 having struggled over recent races.

Since crashing out of his home race at Le Mans having taken pole position, the French rider’s results have suffered a heavy dip but following a chance to reset in the summer break he produced an encouraging charge to seventh place in Brno.

Zarco, who had been rumoured to have split from mentor Laurent Fellon, confirmed he is still training with him but his fellow countryman is no longer managing his racing career. Having taken the summer break to assess his situation, the Tech 3 rider feels he’s made a breakthrough to rediscover his former self on the bike and the test has enabled him to further establish that.

The two-time Moto 2 world champion's lap times certainly showed a steady improvement at the Brno test by taking second place on the final times with a best lap of 1m 55.342s - just over one-tenth off of Marquez who topped the times.

“In the race what was difficult was to play a lot with the bike, I was maybe fighting too much,” Zarco said. “I could have a good pace and stay with them but not enough pace to fight with them, catch Petrucci, overtake him and then try to catch Vale.

“We’ll see at the other races as it is different tracks with different tyres but I think I was coming back to a good feeling and I can be more precise on what I need.

“If something is wrong I can control it better. So there is not one specific feeling, it is mainly little things that are always getting better. It was very small details.”

Zarco says he spent the majority of the test not focusing on technical tweaks or parts but purely on himself in order to continue his riding style improvements.

“I don’t know technically what is on the bike because I didn’t want to know. For myself after the summer break we are back with every lap at more than 300kph, so I feel comfortable,” he said. “I need to rest and push in Spielberg as it is a track that I like. I think I can make a good position there.”