Zarco admits interest in joining Honda “dream team”

The Tech 3 Yamaha rider’s future has become one of the hottest talking points in the silly season, with nearly every manufacturer reported to be monitoring his situation. 

KTM and Suzuki are both known to want to sign Zarco, while Yamaha has also suggested it could field a third factory-spec bike next year in a bid to keep hold of the Frenchman.

Ducati is also believed to have made tenative contact with Zarco’s management, despite it claiming that its priority is to retain current works riders Andrea Dovizioso and Jorge Lorenzo.

Now Honda has joined the potential list of destinations for Zarco, who could be a target to replace the out-of-contract Dani Pedrosa alongside Marquez for the 2019 season.

Asked how he would feel being teammate to Marquez, Zarco replied: “Why be afraid? To be Marquez’s teammate could be a nice thing.

“It’s kind of a dream team, this Repsol Honda team. [When I was younger], I remember [seeing] some pictures of Mick Doohan, then Valentino Rossi, now Marquez.

He added: “I need to wait and take the decision. First of all we do the first few races and then we will know.”

Tech 3 boss Herve Poncharal recently expressed hope he could still retain Zarco in the wake of his team’s decision to split with Yamaha and become a satellite operation of KTM in 2019.

But he stressed he wouldn’t try and prevent his star rider from leaving if he was made a better offer.

“We will not interfere with Johann's decision,” Poncharal told Motorsport.com. “He is the one who must choose the path and I think the teams should respect that.”

KTM Motorsport Director Pit Beirer said that the Austrian marque’s deal with Tech 3 did not include any provisions for Zarco to automatically join the factory team.

Beirer told MotoGP.com: “I'm really happy we could sign a deal with Tech 3, to create now a structure and a base which allows us to work with four riders in MotoGP in the future and really bring up our young generation also into MotoGP.

“I don't want to hide that Johann will be one of the riders we want to talk to about the future, but I also want to underline it was not a package deal with Tech 3.

“I'm really happy and proud that he [Poncharal] trusts our project, and that we got such a fantastic team on our side. Now we start to work on the riders.”