MotoGP rider Zarco signs 2-year contract with KTM

Jerez (Spain), May 4 (IANS) French MotoGP rider Johann Zarco signed a two-year contract with Austria's KTM, where he will join Spaniard Pol Espargaro, the team has confirmed.

The 27-year-old Zarco, who currently competes for the Yamaha team, is now set to ride the KTM RC 16 motorcycle in 2019 and 2020, reports Efe.

"I'm happy we announced it this weekend and it'll be a great challenge for the future," he said at the press conference for Sunday's motorcycle Grand Prix of Spain.

"A European constructor with a European rider, I think if we got a great result and we develop the bike well, we can have a fantastic future," the two-time Moto2 world champion added.

Zarco, the MotoGP Rookie of the Year for 2017, was rumoured to be the next partner of Spaniard Marc Marquez at Repsol Honda, but the Frenchman said that such a pairing would have been complicated.

"Being the teammate of Marc, if I want to be as strong as him, it'll be a lot of work. If I am strong like him as a teammate, I think I can also be very fast with the KTM," he said.

The French rider said he thinks that KTM help him reach his goal of being as good as Marquez.

"The way they were developing the bike last year makes me think something is possible. I went there because I want the challenge," Zarco said of KTM.