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Austin circuit: the third last before the end of a championship that saw Johann Zarco as one of the candidates for the title, an aim that has now vanished and which he will sit back and watch from fourth place in the standings. The French rider, after not a particularly exciting last race and an operation for compartment syndrome on his right arm, reckons he is in excellent shape to face the American circuit.
"The arm is recovering very well, after the operation - Johann told us - I am surprised at how quickly it is recovering, even if the real test will be on the bike. At the moment I'm not doing anything special, better wait until the right day to push it hard, but already the feeling and the pain have diminished, it was what I hoped for. The trip went well, the jet-lag coming from Europe didn't give me any problems, I’ve rested and I feel ready to face the weekend. In the afternoon I will go and have a look at the circuit, I know that some areas have been resurfaced but I have heard conflicting opinions and I would like to be sure myself. This will be an important race on a great circuit, we will work as always to try and get a good result ".
At the Misano test you only rode one day but you tried a new chassis, is that something for this race or for next year? What can you tell us?
"Actually I'm not sure, I just tested it and gave my feedback, but I didn't ask if I would use it in the next races. Last weekend it didn't go very well so more than anything else I wanted to ride the bike again to restore my confidence and check the various setups, then of course we also tested the chassis. I approached everything with a very free mind and I let the technicians deal with this type of thing. I think the test went quite well. "
Was it a new chassis or had it already been tested by other riders?
"I don't know, I knew I had two different bikes but I didn't try to find out what the technical differences were."
Do you think that with the surgery your performance will improve a lot now?
"I hope so. Clearly, I don't take this as an excuse for my drop in performance, but the last two races have been really strange. It was complicated and I also wondered if, knowing about the arm problem, the rest of my body didn't want to give 100% of its ability even though I wanted to fight. It was as if my body went into safety mode. It was a physical problem that has now been solved, and which I hope will solve all the other things. "
So it's all right with your arm. Don't you feel any pain anymore?
"No, it's okay. The recovery is going well and we'll see how it goes tomorrow during the first efforts. But it's going well. I took anti-inflammatories for the first three days to reduce the swelling, because after the operation it's always a little swollen, but I haven't taken them since last Saturday and my arm doesn't hurt. "
Do you already have a goal for the weekend, or are you waiting until tomorrow to get a first idea based on the reactions of the arm?
"I prefer not to set too many goals with the positions. The podium positions are obviously the ones that make you happiest as a rider, being among the top 5 would be a positive result and depending on the difficulty a top 10 can always be interesting: after the top 10 it's not so much fun anymore. So I don't want to say what I'd like to aim for, because it's natural for a rider to want to be among the first.
France has never been at such a high level in MotoGP. Does that depend on the riders, from Fabio and from you, or from a network that is being created?
"It is too long a topic! Either it has to be reduced to one sentence or too many things have to be developed, because I am no longer very young and I know a little more, and certainly I could analyse what could be done. As for the industry, what I can say is that the federation has no intention or does not want to lose this opportunity of having two top riders in the top category. If this situation continues for at least a few years, the sector could be built more easily because there would be two leaders serving as locomotives. As for motorbikes in France, a lot of countries envy us in off-roading, and we in France envy Italy and Spain for racing ".
