It gives us great pleasure to announce Johann Zarco as MGPNews’ 2024 rider of the year.
The Frenchman had a stellar season that few saw coming – but how did he managed to sway our judges?
Here’s the six top reasons Zarco won our most prestigious accolade.
He’s French
Being French immediately put Zarco on the back foot. No one likes the French – not even the French. Indeed they can’t stand each other. And rightly so.
To win any award whilst being French means you have to really win. A close finish or a draw with anyone else would mean an instant win for the none-French entry.
He had the best looking bike
The Castrol Honda looked superb. The retro livery joyfully transported us to a time when the racing was pure, tyre pressure rules weren’t a thing and supergluing bits of carbon fibre to every flat surface didn’t exist.
It was also nice to see green in MotoGP – a colour oddly associated with bad luck – or worse still Kawasaki.
He’s old
No one likes an upstart. Any spotty faced herbert waltzing into proceedings and mixing it up needs a punch up the bracket to help wind their neck in. Take the super stoat Pedro Acosta. Did anyone actually enjoy this 12 year old mustelid putting the senior riders to shame with his speed and epic crashing skillset? Well actually yes we did…but that’s not the point. The point is that for us older folk change is scary whereas continuity is comforting.
Zarco’s 34. Or in MotoGP rider-rebuild-surgery years 137. Worse still his haircut, which is one of the twelve state approved accountancy styles, only makes him look older and less MotoGP-like. Which we love.
He humiliated the other Honda riders
Okay, onto the racing.
Johann Zarco finished the 2024 season with 55 points. Like his haircut this appears not overly impressive at first. But how did the other HRC sentenced riders perform?
- Token Nakagami: 31
- Joan Mir: 21
- Luca Marini: 14
This means Zarco scored more than the next top two HRC riders combined and outscored Marini by almost 400%.
Now add to this that it was Zarco’s rookie season on the terrible RC213V having being pushed off the brilliant Ducati machine. Both Token and Mir had already experienced the Honda and Mir and Marini were on the full factory funded machine.
Finally the French rider was the only rider to ever make it to Q2 – and did so on numerous occasions. He did this using skill and determination – which ultimately led to his mortgage being cancelled and a protest in France about his treacherous actions.
He never crashed
As far as we can remember Joan Mir fell off in every race. Even the races where he didn’t fall off he probably did but no one noticed. Or he fell off in pitlane. It was the same last season when Mir would blame the bike claiming it was impossible to ride it fast and not end up with gravel in your earhole. However in 2024 the Covid Champion’s ‘get out of jail’ card was shoved down his limp chorizo.
Why? Because Zarco, who was always faster than Mir, crashed just once all season – and that was due to the inexperience of the experienced Aleix Espargaro taking him out with a blundered passing attempt. If not for this the LCR rider would have finished every race.
This single overlooked fact is what set Johann apart.
He’s still French
We’ve checked again – and Zarco really is French. Apparently he was born in Cannes – home of annoying films that we’re told are amazing but actually are boring and often in shot in black and white for no real reason.
A few years back Johann showed his classic French training as he waved the white flag and sobbed embarrassingly to get out of riding the KTM which he was finding more frustrating than getting a bath. Back then he appeared flakier than a stolen batch of Pain Au Raisins with most punters mocking the poor, sensitive Frenchman – but not us. We knew the yellow streak would eventually wash off when shower-season finally arrived.
And it arrived in 2024.
