Johann Zarco’s stunning victory at the French Grand Prix last weekend wasn’t just an emotional one for the LCR Honda rider in front of his home crowd - it might also be an important step in securing his future, coming as it does right in the middle of his 2026 contract negotiations with Honda.
Joining satellite squad LCR at the start of the 2024 season but on a contract directly with Honda, Zarco’s role within the team was seen as a crucial one. He was brought in essentially to be to Honda what he had been to Ducati at Pramac: something of an on-track test rider, but in this case helping develop the troubled RC213V back to winning ways.
You’d have to say he’s excelled at it. The Honda’s gradually risen up the rankings over the past season and a half, not just in the hands of Zarco but also with the factory pairing Luca Marini and Joan Mir.
Zarco's regularly been Honda’s fastest rider overall too - outpacing Mir and Marini - while also helping lead the development process. Though Zarco was only 17th in the 2024 riders' championship, his 55 points was 20 more than the works duo's combined tally as Mir's inconsistency in particular proved costly. Even before the Le Mans win, Zarco was on course to be even further clear of his stablemates this year.
With that in mind, it looked at least initially like the job of re-signing Zarco for two more years would be relatively straightforward.
Keen to stay in the championship and still, as we saw at Le Mans, motivated to win, his only demand was likely to be that a new deal was for two years not one. It was Ducati’s reluctance to give that in 2023 that prompted him to walk away from the best bike on the grid in search of a new challenge at Honda.
He’s proved his faith in himself to handle that challenge was very much justified, and it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to negotiate a fresh deal that keeps him in MotoGP until 37 years old.
The only real sticking point is factory team boss Alberto Puig’s desire to keep Marini within the Honda ranks should he be able to sign a big name replacement for the Italian on the works bike. With Mir contracted to the end of 2026 and the second LCR bike reserved for sponsor Idemitsu’s preferred rider (currently Somkiat Chantra), Honda’s only way to keep Marini if it doesn’t want him in its factory line-up is to transfer him to the bike Zarco’s currently on.
We know that Puig has already tried (and, it appears, failed) to secure the services of Pedro Acosta, whose contract with KTM is seemingly too tight to allow him to escape from it a year earlier despite the firm’s off-track troubles.
Zarco’s win on Sunday and the extra pressure it’s likely to put on Honda to keep him might well be one of the factors that resulted in the shock leak to the media earlier this week about reigning world champion Jorge Martin’s desire to get out of his current Aprilia deal, though - given Honda is Martin’s most likely destination.
That is, of course, presuming that Zarco hasn’t already agreed upon at least the loose terms of a contract extension with Honda, something that seems likely given the comments of team boss Lucio Cecchinello after Sunday’s dramatic win.
“Considering his future,” the veteran team boss and racer told TNT Sport after the race, “because everyone is talking about the future of Johann Zarco, I believe that it would be a pity to break down all these magical connections, the quite good connection that we have between him and the engineers, the understanding between him and the crew chief, between him and the technical director.
“I believe that we will… I hope that we will continue to work together.”
That also, of course, contains an implicit reference to Zarco staying with LCR in 2026, not getting a promotion to factory colours. According to The Race’s paddock sources, being in the factory team isn’t a priority for Zarco if he continues to get a current-spec bike at LCR and can have a two-year deal.
Should it be the case that Sunday’s win was, then, the cherry on top of his contract renegotiations, then if Honda signs Martin to join Mir in the factory team with Zarco staying at LCR with a works bike to keep contributing to Honda's rebuild alongside the pair of world champions, Marini will just have to be on the chopping block after all.
And in that circumstance Aprilia might well be interested in something of a swap deal and Marini taking the seat Martin’s just decided he needs to get off.
