In its previous life, KTM must have done something hideously wrong to Johann Zarco.
Otherwise, it would not be possible to explain how Zarco, intentionally or not, has been spoiling KTM's party in the past couple of years.
Zarco became a red-hot property after his outstanding first two seasons in MotoGP in 2017 and 2018 with the Tech 3 Yamaha team. Looking to take the next step, he decided to sign a two-year contract with KTM before the 2019 season, with the hope of becoming the number one rider in the up and coming Austrian squad which, at that time, was still finding its footing in MotoGP despite showing a lot of promise.
With Tech 3 switching to KTM in 2019, the newly-set up Petronas SRT Team became the official customer Yamaha team. Had Zarco stayed with Yamaha, he would have become the leader of the de facto second-best Yamaha team on the grid. His departure though, meant that the honour has now fallen onto the current MotoGP championship leader and fellow Frenchman Fabio Quartararo, who at the time was an unheralded 20-year-old and a surprise choice for SRT.
Unfortunately, Zarco's tenure with KTM ended in disaster. Apart from starting on the front row in the wet Czech Grand Prix, his best finish was tenth in the Catalunya Grand Prix. Growing so frustrated with his performance, he asked for a release from his contract, and was dumped with six races left.
Having severed his ties with KTM, Zarco became a free agent, and was called up later that season to replace LCR Honda rider Takaaki Nakagami who opted for season-ending surgery. However, his performance was not good enough to secure him a ride with one of the so-called big teams.
Let's go back to KTM for a moment. Zarco's replacement for 2020 is South African Brad Binder, who went on to secure the Austrian marquee's first-ever win in MotoGP class in the Czech Grand Prix last week.
Now back to Zarco. Thanks to the efforts of various sides, he had landed a ride with Avintia, a team he initially didn't want to join because he didn't believe that it is good enough. His concern, in fact, is not unfounded. Despite joining the MotoGP class in 2012, Avintia has never finished on the podium.
Then it finally came right. In the third race of this truncated 2020 season in Czech Republic, a race that would eventually be won by Binder, Zarco put in a herculean effort to put his Avintia Ducati on pole. And he was running strongly in the race when more skirmishes with KTM took place.
Pol Espargaro, the incumbent number one rider in KTM, ran wide in a corner. Seeing a gap, Zarco decided to go for it, only for Espargaro to veer back onto Zarco's racing line and the two collided. While Zarco managed to stay upright and go on to finish third despite being controversially given a long lap penalty for the collision, Espargaro's race was over. Judging by the pace of Binder and Espargaro at that time, it would be fair to say that Espargaro would have finished ahead of the South African.
While KTM did get its first win, its plan to probably give it to Espargaro, who has been with the team since it joined the MotoGP class in 2017, was ruined by Zarco.
In the very next race in Austria, Espargaro showed great pace again throughout the weekend. At one-third distance of the race, Espargaro had a healthy lead over Andrea Dovizioso and Jack Miller. It looked as though Espargaro would finally secure his first win in the premier class.
Then Zarco struck again. This time, he did it in an indirect but spectacular fashion, and it almost resulted in tragedy.
While swerving and dicing for positions in the top ten, Zarco was hit from behind by Quartararo's team-mate Franco Morbidelli, and their two bikes went out of control, skidded along and across the track at a high speed, and then somehow somersaulted through the tiny gap between the Yamahas of Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi, who were clearly unaware of what was going on behind them.
It was such a miracle that the two flying bikes somehow didn't hit the two Yamaha riders and strike a probably fatal blow on either of them. It was also a miracle that no one was seriously injured in such a frightening accident.
With carnage and pieces of bikes (fortunately not riders) all over the track, the red flag was shown and Espargaro's advantage gone. Clearly upset and unravelled by it, Espargaro rode with a vengeance but erratically in the re-started race, and in a carbon copy of his accident with Zarco in the previous race, he clattered into fellow KTM rider Miguel Oliveira after running wide, thus ending their races and his hope of victory.
So, what's more to come between Zarco and KTM? So far, the 2020 season, like what is going on in the world right now, has been pretty crazy. Yours truly just hopes that they will bury the hatchet and things will go back to normal soon.
