Honda could pull off a major surprise in this weekend’s Barcelona Grand Prix and end a nightmare 2024 season on a high, based on the pace shown by Johann Zarco on Friday.
The LCR rider dragged his Honda RC213V to a strong fourth place in second practice at Barcelona, less than three-tenths behind the factory Ducati of two-time champion Francesco Bagnaia.
A slipstream from a number of faster bikes in the final sector played a big role in Zarco posting a time of 1m39.147s, but the fact that a Honda was classified ahead of the Ducati GP24s of Jorge Martin and Enea Bastianini was no mean feat.
It prompted Zarco to target a spot on the first two rows of the grid in Saturday’s qualifying, before adding that achieving that would be nothing short of magical for the beleaguered Japanese marque.
Honda, after all, has struggled to get into Q2 for the majority of the year, so for Zarco to gain an automatic entry to the final part of qualifying means it has a chance to mix with the best on the grid.
In the first 19 events of the year, Honda qualified inside the top 10 only three times, each time courtesy of newcomer Zarco. Despite racing for the satellite LCR team, the veteran racer has consistently outperformed his factory counterparts all year, scoring more points than Joan Mir and Luca Marini combined.
“It can be [regarded as] one of the best laps,” said Zarco. “I think Thailand was a good lap also behind Marc [Marquez] and another one in Aragon.
Johann Zarco, LCR Honda
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“But overall, to get a good lap before the end [of the session] was great, then on the last tyre I think the potential was clear to do some tenths better but a few mistakes were done.
“So I could not improve but it’s positive for tomorrow. But I’m very happy with how the practice went in the afternoon and I hope I can keep going like that.
“It seems there is an opportunity for the first two rows which will be magic for tomorrow. Then when the tyre gets used [in the race] we have a big change of the bike behaviour.
“I don’t know if we will have a solution for tomorrow but at least get the speed and then try to control.”
Although Honda appeared to make little progress in the first half of the season due to a lack of developments on the bike, a clear uptrend can be seen since the middle part of August.
Zarco finished a race inside the top 10 twice during the Asian leg of the campaign, securing a best result of eighth…
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