Zarco: I know I need to change my style, but limits are same…

Johann Zarco’s miserable season aboard the Red Bull KTM RC16 arguably reached a new nadir during the Italian MotoGP after a weekend of lacklustre pace that was headlined by more than one crash.

The Frenchman’s struggles on the factory machine have been well documented this season with bosses giving him the ‘hurry up’ on improving his results against the backdrop of team-mate Pol Espargaro delivering a series of strong results on the sister machine.

Having accepted he will instead need to adapt his riding style to compensate for the RC16’s characteristics, Zarco says he attempted to do so in Mugello, but added that crashes during both FP2 and Qualifying were ultimately the result.

“We know we are suffering and I must wait to have some new things on the bike,” he said. “I know I need to change my style but even by trying to do this I have the same limits as before.

“We can only get better from here and now I have six months experience. I think the team has good information for the way to work.”

Though he reached the chequered flag come race day, an aggressive soft tyre strategy didn’t reap dividends as he faded to 17th and last, finishing out of the points for the first time this year.

“I wanted a bit more consistency, so I chose the Soft tyre but by the end it was finished. I wanted to be able to fight at the beginning and understand what my opponents can do better than me or not. I was able to get some good information even though I suffered at the end of the race and I finished slowly.”

Zarco is yet to crack the top ten so far this season, unlike Espargaro who notched up a fifth top ten of the year in Italy, nearly half-a-minute shy of his team-mate.