Johann Zarco believes this year’s rookie Fabio Quartararo would be as surprised as he was himself two seasons ago on his debut in the royal class in his first race of the year.
In his MotoGP debut in 2017, Zarco led six laps on a Tech 3 semi-factory Yamaha, then ended the race prematurely with a fall. His compatriot, who will make his debut with the Petronas SRT team on Sunday, is in the last pre-season tests in Qatar. finished in second place just behind Maverick Vinales.
“Yamaha looks extremely competitive on this racetrack. Fabio has also proven this in recent tests, ”said Zarco, who is now riding a KTM motorcycle.
"On Sunday, he can surprise just like I did two seasons ago."
Quartararo made his way to the MotoGP class with just one win in four years in the Moto 3 and Moto 2 classes. Valentino Rossi, who joked that the nineteen-year-old Frenchman could even be his son, said he was behind the young racer a very unusual career.
“He’s still very, very young, born in 1999, which means he’s two years younger than my brother Luca and has already come into the MotoGP class,” the nine-time world champion said.
“He has a very unusual career behind him. He came to Moto 3 as a little genius and then lost that speed a bit. This season, he has a great opportunity to prove his speed with this motorcycle. It will be very interesting to see how he does. ”
Although Zarco described his compatriot as a racer who can surprise in the first race, he believes that the current champion of the Moto 2 class, Pecco Bagnaia, will be the best among the newcomers in the entire season.
“Somehow, I still think that Bagnaia will be the most constant among newcomers this year. Once he gets used to the motorcycle and learns some things, he will be very competitive. ”
In addition to Bagnaia and Quartararo, newcomers this year include Joan Mir and Miguel Oliveira. Everyone drew attention to themselves at the pre-season tests and Mir believes that the fight for the best rookie will be especially important this year.
“From past testing, we can see that all newcomers this year are very close and very close to the best. This is very important to us. It seems that the level of newcomers this year is extremely high, which means that the title of the best newcomer will play a particularly important role.
Fabio Quartararo was so on first free practice, which he finished in eleventh place, as on the otherwhen he was the fifth best rookie.
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