Zarco no longer riding like 'guy going to buy bread'

Zarco both qualified and finished seventh at Brno, matching his best result of the last six races, while also progressing directly to Q2 for the first time since June’s Catalan GP.

He also only finished 6.1 seconds down on race winner Andrea Dovizioso, marking the smallest gap since the Frenchman came runner-up to Marc Marquez at Jerez in May.

“We are working on the bike to find this best feeling that now we are coming back on,” Zarco said of his Czech GP weekend. “Already from Saturday we were quite fast.

“Not enough to be on the podium, but I think I understood good things this weekend. Now I’m close to the real race rider feeling.

“Maybe in the last races I was riding like a road guy that is going to buy the bread every morning. Now I can ride well the Yamaha and the bike answers ‘yes’.”

Zarco was second-quickest in post-race testing at Brno, but said he had no new parts to try and was simply focussed on honing set-up ahead of this weekend’s Austrian GP.

“Nothing is changing on the Yamaha,” he said. “Just doing laps, improving my feeling, improving myself with the team try to find a better set-up, different things to give me more options for the next races.

“I feel that I am in good form, it was good to have the test immediately after the race because in the race I could see many things.

”Every time more we have laps more we understand what I like on the bike or what I don’t like, it’s positive, if I keep this pace I can be very strong for the rest of the season.”

Laurent Fellon

Photo by: Gold and Goose / LAT Images

Earlier in the Brno weekend, Zarco clarified his relationship with manager Laurent Fellon following reports that a rift had developed between the pair in recent weeks.

He explained that Fellon will continue as a rider coach but is no longer acting as his manager.

“With Laurent, what is special thing is when we have training, we are on the track, alone with the motorbike, we have special feelings together,” said Zarco.

“I like it, and I want to still use it and work in this way, because it makes me still strong even in the future.

“Because I am growing up with the career, we needed to change a few things, like a child growing up. So that’s why people think we are fighting or struggling together.

“We are just changing a bit the way of managing, but not the way of working on the track.”