After dominating the Moto2 class all weekend at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, and despite a bad start when the race got underway in great conditions, Ajo Motorsport rider Johann Zarco won after a hard battle claiming his fifth win of the 2016 season so far.
Zarco dominated all weekend
He topped the timesheets every session at the Red Bull Ring, a track that has been reintroduced to the calendar for the first time this year in 19 years. A bad start meant he entered the first corner in fifth position and his fellow competitors made it tough for him to claim the top spot on the podium.
It took the current Moto2 champion a few laps to find the rhythm he was in over the previous days. But when he did he started to immediately make his presence felt.
Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider Franco Morbidelli got a great start and looked to be breaking away slightly, but this surely just egged Zarco on more. He battled against Morbidelli’s teammate Alex Marquez, Thomas Luthi (Garage Plus Interwetten) and Alex Rins (Paginas Amarillas HP 40) but eventually made his way to the front where he eventually managed to stay and take the win.
The champion is definitely on form
This is the fifth consecutive podium for the Frenchman who donned Lederhosen to complete his backwards flip celebration off the tyre wall. He kept them on for the podium happy to embrace the Austrian stereotype.
Zarco said he was “very happy“ as he had “felt good all weekend”. He felt that “Getting pole position was confirmation that I felt very strong and could do well here.”
The Frenchman felt that he “managed to get the best performance from the bike with used tyres and had an even faster pace.” At the start he knew he “lost many positions at the first corner” but he did not give up as he “knew that as the laps went on” that he “could fight and have a good pace”.
Zarco confident throughout the race
The Kalex rider knew that it was a matter of “keeping calm” and “doing things right, step by step”. He said he “felt better as the race went on” and thought that “other riders suffered a little more”.
Towards the end of the race when he “passed Morbidelli” he said, “I knew I could break away” although he felt that at the Red Bull Ring “it is very difficult to make a difference”. Still he though, “It was fantastic.”
He admitted, “Now we are already thinking about next week.” He spoke about the demands it has on a rider saying, “Physically it is not easy to do two races in a row” yet he said that over the summer break they “have worked to be in good shape”.
Zarco’s pole position time of 1:29.255 is now the best ever lap completed by a Moto2 bike at the Red Bull Ring, his fastest lap during the race of 1:29.497 on lap eight of the race is the official Circuit Record Lap. Zarco is currently leading the championship with 176 points.