Takaaki Nakagami firmly expects another MotoGP season with the LCR Honda team and hopes there will be a rethink at HRC with the arrival of Johann Zarco
Takaaki Nakagami currently has no signed contract for the 2024 MotoGP season, but firmly expects to continue racing for LCR-Honda in the new season
It is certain that Alex Rins will leave the LCR team for Yamaha at the end of the season and be replaced by Johann Zarco. Nakagami is confident that his future with the team will also be made official soon. He himself puts his chances of staying at 99 per cent.
Already, Nakagami is pondering the benefits that Zarco’s arrival from Pramac-Ducati to LCR-Honda will bring to Lucio Cecchinello’s team, at least on paper. “Zarco coming to the team, hopefully that will change the mindset and help with a view to the future,” says the Japanese rider, who himself has ridden for LCR-Honda since 2018 and has never ridden for another team in his MotoGP career.
“At the moment Honda seems to be more focused on the factory team,” Nakagami notes from the LCR squad’s point of view, hoping, “When Zarco comes, hopefully that will be more balanced, listening to what I say and what Zarco says at HRC as well, to increase the pace of development.”
“Of course it’s obvious that the factory team comes first,” Nakagami shows some understanding of Honda’s strategy, but notes that the difference between, on the one hand, the factory team for which Marc Marquez and Joan Mir ride and, on the other, the LCR team is “quite big” at the moment.
Silverstone as the start of a “slightly new approach”?
But: At the Silverstone weekend at the beginning of August, HRC made an effort not to make the difference seem as huge as Nakagami describes it. There it was not the factory riders Marquez or Mir whose bikes were the first to be fitted with the new aerodynamics.
It was rather Nakagami’s LCR Honda on which the new larger wings on the fairing were first seen. In the factory team, the new aero was only used for the first time the following race weekend (Spielberg). “That surprised me because it was the first time ever that the situation was like that,” admits Nakagami, hoping to see in it “the first sign of a slightly new approach. “
What can Nakagami and Zarco do at Honda Japan?
“Because I’m Japanese and most of the engineers are from Japan, I can certainly explain things a bit more in depth to everyone,” Nakagami advertises himself.
On his future, Nakagami says: “I have already met with some people from HRC in Assen and again in Austria. What I can say at this stage is that I will stay 99 per cent with the team. It’s almost signed and sealed. “
If Nakagami is confirmed at LCR-Honda for the 2024 season, he and Zarco will form one of the most experienced rider duos ever in the premier class. Zarco’s MotoGP career has even been running since 2017, with LCR-Honda already being the fifth employer in the Frenchman’s case.
Zarco already rode three races for the LCR team at the end of 2019, back then as a replacement for Nakagami, who was injured. Apart from that, the Frenchman was under contract with Tech3-Yamaha, the KTM factory team, Avintia-Ducati and, until the end of the year, Pramac-Ducati.