MotoGP France GP Recap: Madness in Le Mans as Zarco Makes History

Strap in. This was chaos in the most MotoGP way possible.

It started with déjà vu: rain began to fall as the riders rolled out for the warm-up lap. With the white flag waving, signalling a flag-to-flag race, all hell broke loose. Every single rider pulled into the pits to change bikes. The result? An aborted start, confusion, and a second sighting lap.

And this is where it got weird.

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The second sighting lap starts and Lorenzo Savadori, on dry tyres (!), rolled out while the rest of the grid had switched to wets. Then over half of the riders riders who had just swapped from dry to wets swapped again—back to dry setups, triggering double long laps penalties. Only nine riders stayed on track and took the “normal” start while the rest had to begin the warm up lap from pit lane.

Then came the carnage: Enea Bastianini crashed and took out Pecco Bagnaia and Joan Mir. Somehow, Pecco and Enea managed to rejoin the race after a bike swap, but it didn’t get any better for either rider from there. Fabio Quartararo, out front and looking like a man on a mission, started gapping the field—until he crashed out at Turn 7, at the same place, at the same time less than a second behind Quartararo Brad Binder also crashed out.

From there, things unravelled even further. Riders began pitting again to change back to wet bikes as the conditions flip-flopped. Aldeguer found himself leading the race for a stint before he swapped his bike and then chaos claimed more victims. Bastianini and Binder both suffered second crashes. Pecco, unbelievably, came in again for a third bike swap.

And then—in all this chaos —Johann Zarco emerged.

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Zarco had changed bikes only initially. He stayed out on wets at the start, kept his head, managed the conditions, and when the dust settled, he was in the lead. It was no doubt some of the longest laps of his career as over half of the race was still to come. The Frenchman did hold on and crossed the line to win his home Grand Prix—the first Frenchman to do so in 71 years. On a Honda. Let that sink in.

Marc Márquez somehow survived the storm for second place, showing again that when things get messy, he thrives. Third went to Aldeguer, who now has a Sprint and Grand Prix podium under his belt and has officially shed the "rookie" label in my eyes.

Here are your top ten:

1. 🇫🇷 Johann Zarco (Repsol Honda)

2. 🇪🇸 Marc Márquez (Ducati)

3. 🇪🇸 Fermín Aldeguer (Ducati)

4. 🇪🇸 Pedro Acosta (KTM)

5. 🇪🇸 Maverick Viñales (KTM)

6. 🇯🇵 Takaaki Nakagami (Repsol Honda)

7. 🇪🇸 Raúl Fernández (Aprilia)

8. 🇮🇹 Fabio Di Giannantonio (Ducati)

9. 🇮🇹 Lorenzo Savadori (Aprilia)

10. 🇯🇵 Ai Ogura (Aprilia)
    

DNFs included Quartararo, Binder, Alex Márquez, Oliveira, and Jack Miller—all of whom had moments in the madness before it ended early for them.