“It’s been getting worse,” Fabio Quartararo shaken up by Yamaha’s performance in the Sepang MotoGP tests
Fabio Quartararo is distressed about Yamaha's performance, does not think they can win with the current package.
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Fabio Quartararo
The MotoGP pre-season testing took place in Sepang from February 10th to 12th. This was an opportunity for the riders to learn about the work done by the team over the winter, and analyse the bike’s potential. Fabio Quartararo, the French MotoGP rider was left distressed after the three-day test. He was surprised by the lack of pace. After struggling with the bike for most of the 2022 season, this came as a shock to the French MotoGP rider.
The 2021 MotoGP world champion was concerned about Yamaha’s performance in Sepang. In the first pre-season testing and the teams eventually make improvements, but the rider was troubled. Quartararo and his teammate Franco Morbidelli were a second off the pace, much to their disappointment. Both the Frenchman and his teammate were on the same page that the time attack was the bad aspect.
Fabio Quartararo concluded the test with an array of emotions. He spoke about the problem in the time attack with The Race “That’s what we’re looking for. This is a problem, If I don’t look at the screens and see the lap time I feel like I’m riding in the low (1):58s but then I look at the lap time and see the low (1):59s. It’s like: What’s going on? It’s not like I get to the box and say I’m losing the front all over the place or say I don’t have grip, it’s like, I don’t know what’s going on and that’s the biggest problem,” he stated.
Related: “I want to stay close,” Miguel Oliveira sets objectives for MotoGP’s 2023 pre-season test
Fabio Quartararo is not happy with the performance of his bike
The French man reflected on his first year, “In my first year I took a lot of pole positions and then it’s been a dropping and dropping and now it’s impossible and the worst thing is we don’t know why. I feel that all year round we have fallen short in qualifying”. Quartararo looked back at last season’s qualifying and felt he struggled then too. As the situation is not looking good at the moment for the riders they hope to find a solution in Portimao.
He acknowledged how the team went from nine poles in 2019 and 2020, to six poles in 2021 when he won the world championship and just one pole last season. This decline in the qualifying pace is quite bothersome for Quartararo. And he admitted that the worst thing was they didn’t know why. It can be argued that it is up to Yamaha to deliver a fast bike with the qualifying pace. The riders will next be seen at Portimao for the second MotoGP pre-season testing on 11th-12th March.
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Varad Joshi
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