Johann Zarco has praised his motivation, and explained his failure in MotoGP by a problem of adaptation to the category.
Former Zarco’s teammate Tito Rabat is now leaving Avintia Racing Team for the Barni Racing Team and WorldSBK 2021, despite a contract that initially covered until the end of next year.
Zarco admitted he knows Rabat well since their Moto2 years, where the confrontations were numerous. Notably in 2015, when they fought for the title of world champion.
“Overall, the memories with Tito are from the Moto2 years when he was really strong, when he won the title in 2014 and then fought with me when I had my first title,” Zarco said.
Rabat then found himself riding the Honda RC213V of the EG 0,0 Marc VDS team. Zarco believes that was the beginning of failure for the Spaniard rider.
“Maybe he started in MotoGP with a bike that wasn’t very competitive . At first it was a Honda (satellite), so it doesn’t help to understand if what you are doing is right or not. I think it was complicated for him.” Zarco said.
“He is someone fully passionate, motivated. He is the one who rides the motorcycle the most, he trains a lot outside of the GPs, and does a lot of laps during competition weekends.
“But for his style, he couldn’t adapt well to this category because he needs a lot of riding to adapt. Unfortunately we can’t ride the MotoGP machine that much, and if you don’t understand yourself quickly how to adapt then you are in pain, and I think that has been his situation for many years.” Zarco added.
Rabat joined MotoGP in 2016 via the Belgian team EG 0,0 Marc VDS. He separated at the end of 2017, after two years of complicated training (21st in 2016, 19th in 2017), on a Honda RC213V which was certainly not the best machine for him.
