Just wait for Mugello…
The Italian track will favour Ducati
It’s been 318 races since Ducati made their MotoGP debut in 2003 and a podium lockout is an accolade that’s so far evaded the Bologna factory. Johann Zarco believes that could change at the next race in Mugello after he fired momentum back into his title tilt with second in France.
It’s hard to pick a fight with the 30-year-old’s assessment when you consider Ducati are undefeated in Mugello in the last three years. And Mugello’s scarily fast 1141m home straight should be gobbled up by Ducati’s GP21, which has already set a new MotoGP top speed record in 2021. Zarco blitzed the Qatar speed trap at an eye-popping 225.1mph, which means he was covering more than 100m per second.
“On paper, Mugello looks like it will be really strong for Ducati. I’m curious to go there because I can see we’ve already an advantage this year on small tracks and a full Ducati podium is a very real possibility,” said Zarco. The Pramac Ducati rider’s Le Mans second was the third time in five races that he’s been runner-up this season. It could well have been a maiden win but for his choice of Michelin’s front and rear medium compound rain tyres for the flag-to-flag bike switch. When the track was at its wettest, Zarco struggled to generate temperature and on a weekend in which there were a budget-busting 117 crashes, it’s easy to understand his hesitancy to attack too soon in such treacherous conditions. That wasn’t a headache for Jack Miller, who opted to use the soft rear, while Fabio Quartararo was also much faster with his soft front tyre choice reaching optimum working temperature faster, too.
‘A full Ducati podium is a real possibility’
It was only when the track dried in the final 10 laps that Zarco’s choice started to pay off. With less surface water to keep tyre temperature down, Miller’s rear and Quartararo’s front began deteriorating.
At the halfway stage, Zarco was over 17 seconds behind Miller, but the extra durability of the medium rain tyres meant he finished less than four seconds behind the Aussie. Zarco said: “Maybe I could have won but there wasn’t enough time, but to be disappointed to miss the victory would be thinking in the wrong way.”