Winning any MotoGP race is special; you are one of the elite few to have achieved it, relative to how many have tried. For a brief moment, you are on top of the world, but racing is about nothing but looking forward, and, all too soon, thoughts turn to the next race.
However, Johann Zarco and the LCR Honda team may take a bit longer to get over the euphoria of winning their home race. Zarco is the first Frenchman to win at home since Pierre Monneret, riding a Gilera, won the French Grand Prix at the Reims street circuit in 1954.
Add to this the fact that the weekend at Le Mans broke the record for attendance at any MotoGP race in the world, with well over 300,000 making the pilgrimage over the weekend, and 110,000 witnessing the victory on race day. You have the recipe for the creation of a new national hero, not to mention a strong contender for race of the century so far. That’s surely worth an extended celebration?
At one point, it looked as if Fabio Quartararo was the rider most likely to become the new national hero, as he was leading by the end of the first lap and quickly built a lead of one second, but the conditions that Zarco mastered so well caught Quartararo out on lap four as he was running second to Marc Marquez and down he went, closely followed by Brad Binder, the intensifying rain catching them out on a notoriously slippery corner.
The word “chaotic” has been widely used to describe the beginning of the French GP, but even that word hardly does justice to what was going on.
Every rider went to the grid on bikes set up and tyres for the dry, despite the fact that the track was still damp after intermittent showers. Cue every rider diving into the pits at the end of the warm-up lap to change bikes, forcing a restart.
Upon leaving the pits for the second formation lap, the majority then realised that perhaps it wasn’t wet enough for rain tyres and came into the pits at the end of the formation lap to swap bikes back to a dry set-up. As the second warm-up lap commenced, all those who had come in to the pits, which was about two-thirds of the grid, including Quartararo and Marc Marquez, set off from pit lane and were able to take up their original positions on the grid, but they would all have to serve a double long-lap penalty for coming into pit lane when it was closed.
Finally, the lights went out and the race was underway, but it didn’t last long for Bagnaia, who was caught up in Bastiannini’s incident at the first chicane. Bagnaia re-mounted but would endure a no-points weekend for the first time in years, and effectively put himself out of championship contention, although 2023 showed that overturning a large points deficit is not impossible. Bagnaia cuts a dejected figure at the moment; his inability to mould the Ducati GP25 into a machine that he can use as he likes is giving his confidence a good old kicking, and it’s not getting any better.
More importantly for the story of the French GP was the fact that Zarco, who had remained on wet tyres and therefore had no penalties to serve, was also forced off-track at the chicane on the first lap by the Bagnaia/Bastiannini incident but kept it upright through the gravel trap and re-joined in 17th.
At this point, Quartararo was making hay at the front, leading by a second from the Marquez brothers, all three riders, among many, having to take double long-lap penalties. Then Quartararo lost it at the final corner, followed closely by Binder, so Marc Marquez now led, but not for long as he took his second long-lap penalty and now Aldeguer was leading from the Marquez brothers. It was actually impossible to keep track of who was running where for the first six or seven laps, what with crashes, long lap penalties being taken and pitting for different bikes.
It was clearly too wet for slicks, and the Marquez brothers both dived into the pits to change bikes. All this time, Zarco was keeping his head cool and trying not to burn up his wet tyres, running in fifth. The top six looked very different to normal at this point; Aldeguer leading, with DiGiannantonio, Savadori, Ogura, Zarco and Oliveira close behind.
By lap eight, Zarco was leading! Where did that come from? Well, we know where it came from: the right and well-informed tyre choice, combined with weather that creates a level playing field, negating the advantages of the Ducatis and masking the deficiencies of the Hondas, combined with multiple penalties and pit stops for everyone but one rider. Luck and skill combined.
From that point on, Zarco simply rode away from everyone, not least of all Marc Marquez, who emerged from the pits around eight seconds behind the Frenchman and who proceeded to drop further and further back, finishing a frankly unbelievable 19 seconds behind at the flag.
More importantly for Marc, his brother suffered a nasty high-side and was out, so with both his closest championship rivals out of the way, Marquez was certain to leave Le Mans with a healthy points lead, which turned out to be 22 points ahead of his brother and a huge 51 points ahead of Bagnaia.
This was an extremely mature ride from Marquez, for once playing the points game. He admitted that, without the Jerez crash two weeks ago, he might have pushed too hard and fallen foul of the conditions in France like so many of his rivals, but he kept a cool head and reaped the reward.
None of which should detract from Zarco’s achievement. This was a spectacularly impressive ride in the worst conditions possible; certainly not dry but, for much of the race, not really wet, either, just greasy and slippery with very little idea of where the limit of adhesion lay; a point proven by the number of crashes behind him.
Championship material he may not be – at least on the Honda as it stands at the moment – but Zarco’s was a hugely popular victory up and down the pit lane and, of course, the vast partisan crowd around the circuit went absolutely mad! It was enough to bring a small lump to the throat.
How appropriate also that Ducati’s winning streak of 22 consecutive victories was brought to a halt by a Honda rider; after all, it was Honda’s record of consecutive wins that Ducati was about to break had the Italian manufacturer won in France!
Another good thing about a wet race is that there was no tyre pressure rule to mess things up. One of the most respected journalists in the pit lane, Mat Oxley, wrote about the rule in his latest piece in Motor Sport magazine and came up with some very good arguments against the rule, and also a much more sensible penalty scheme.
His point was that choosing the right tyre pressure before a race needs a crystal ball and the ability to see into the future, and that getting it wrong, i.e., running at too low a pressure for too long in a race, was in no way cheating; it was just a gamble that didn’t pay off; a guess, in other words. In a sport with such extensive and tight rules, this is an important difference.
With that being the case, awarding a time penalty is unfair as it naturally promotes riders behind the offending rider into potentially better points-paying positions, but it also penalises those who finish ahead of the offending rider by having rivals close the points gap through no effort of their own, which could have huge implications at the end of a season.
A better way of penalising the rider would be to give him a points penalty, so that he is the only one who is affected. He retains the position in which he finishes the race, and this also avoids the situation whereby one rider takes the podium plaudits only to have the position later stripped from him, and the rider who should have been on the podium misses out. It was an interesting idea, and one can only hope the powers-that-be in MotoGP are taking notice.
There was another bombshell immediately after the race concerning Jorge Martin. A Spanish-language edition of www.motorsport.com claimed that Martin wants to activate a get-out clause in his contract to leave Aprilia to join Honda in 2026. The clause states that, if he (Martin) is not amongst the championship contenders by the time of the French GP, he is open to accepting offers from rival manufacturers for 2026 with no penalty for breaking his Aprilia contract early.
The only problem with this is that Martin has completed only a single race in 2025, so there is no chance of him being in a championship position; therefore, does the clause stand? Word is that Aprilia intends to legally block the clause being activated, but to what end? If Martin doesn’t want to be with Aprilia, what’s the point in trying to make him stay? Of course, he has no real idea how good the Aprilia could be through his input, so to want to leave could be jumping the gun, if the rumours are indeed true.
Don’t forget, also, that his great friend Aleix Espargaro is now a Honda test rider. Espargaro was undoubtedly a strong influence in getting Martin to sign for Aprilia after the Ducati factory snub during 2024, so a move to the factory Honda to work with him is clearly tempting to Martin. Espargaro has inside knowledge of where Honda is going, from right now to the change in rules for 2027 and beyond, and you can be sure that his opinion matters to Martin. Maybe Martin knows something we don’t know?
Espargaro is an excellent test and development rider, perhaps Martin isn’t, but the combination of the two could be devastating, provided Honda will listen to them; listening to riders hasn’t always been their strong point.
It’s all hotting up nicely and we’re off to Great Britain next. It’s not always a dry race, so who’s to say that Honda or Yamaha could spring a surprise? It’s also a very fast circuit, which will suit the Ducatis if it’s dry. Any bets?
