Aleix Espargaro has given a frank assessment of whom he thinks has earned the opportunity to join Marc Marquez on the available Repsol Honda seat for the 2020 MotoGP World Championship, saying Alex Marquez deserves it more than Johann Zarco.
With the season now over but the countdown to 2020 already underway with this weeks’ post-season test at Valencia, the focus is now firmly on who will be called up to replace Jorge Lorenzo at HRC following his shock decision to retire on the eve of the final round.
Latest paddock rumours suggest the younger Marquez brother is set to join his sibling in the title-winning team next season, with Zarco seemingly set for a return to the Moto2 Championship he won in 2015 and 2016.
Zarco was the early – and seemingly logical - front-runner for the seat given his availability and his solid turn on the LCR Honda during a three-event outing in place of the injured Takaaki Nakagami.
However, as the weekend progressed it is 2019 Moto2 World Champion Alex Marquez that has emerged as the favourite, with sources suggesting a deal will be announced imminently.
It’s an outcome Aprilia Racing rider Espargaro has welcomed, firstly because it validates the Moto2 programme but also because he doesn’t believe Zarco – despite being a six-time podium winner – has earned the shot.
"Maybe people say that Zarco deserves that bike, for me it's not true. For me if Zarco deserves that bike, Pol and me deserve ten times more,” Crash.net reports. "So I think if finally the Moto2 world champion goes there, more than welcome and I think he deserves it."
More cuttingly, however, Espargaro says Zarco’s decision to quit KTM after just a single season despite having a two-year contract and his public lamenting of his difficult situation showed as a lack of professionalism.
"The attitude he showed this year, for me is not a professional attitude,” Espargaro – whose brother Pol partnered Zarco at KTM this year – continued.
“The people around me at Aprilia know how many times I cried last year, how many times I cried this year. But this is our job, this is our life. A lot of people behind us, with a lot of families, are working very hard. A lot of people are putting a lot of money into these projects.
“So, to stop and say, 'this bike is shit, I go home' - for me, he doesn't deserve to go to the best bike and best team in the world. It’s just my opinion."
KTM hangover coming back to haunt Johann Zarco?
Espargaro’s blunt assessment shouldn’t come as too much of a shock. Indeed, Zarco’s attitude was certainly the elephant in the room when his name was first mentioned in connection with a move into Repsol Honda.
Honest and direct, Zarco’s no-nonsense approach made him fast on a competitive bike but didn’t serve him well when it came to proving himself in a more challenging environment.
Struggling to adapt his smooth style to the characteristics of the KTM RC16, a bike that needs a heavier hand to get the most from it, Zarco famously decried the team for not preparing the machine to his needs, prompting a retort from bosses that suggested a rider of his supposed quality should be able to adapt to it.
The relationship never really recovered with Zarco openly expressing his frustrations before he told KTM he wanted out a year early. The deal ended up being annulled mid-way through the year as KTM shifted its focus to 2020.
Zarco’s subsequent comments about a possible switch to Avintia Ducati – which he flatly dismissed because it isn’t a top team – arguably treads the line between self-assured and arrogant too.
Having spent the year with a rider that couldn’t adapt to its RC213V, one can imagine Repsol Honda would prefer a more harmonious working environment over a potentially fractious one, especially if Zarco made demands to a team that works so tightly around Marquez. In short, don’t expect Marquez to be relenting on changing the bike to suit his team-mate without incentive.
By contrast, Marc and Alex Marquez would inevitably work very closely together for the greater good, while – as we have reported before – Honda also gets a young, raw protégé on its books to develop like Fabio Quartararo has at Yamaha.
Ironically, though Espargaro references it himself, the Spaniard has also been one of the outspokenly critical riders of his own team in 2019, repeatedly bemoaning the lack of development on his machine even if it did appear to take a significant step forward in the concluding rounds.
With this in mind, Espargaro’s comments could be seen as ‘sour grapes’, but while his views will have no bearing on Repsol Honda’s choice, he is unlikely to be the only person [Marc Marquez?] to hold this opinion…
