“Toughest job of my career”: Fabio Quartararo comments on defending his World Championship title after crashing out of the Australian GP
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Fabio Quartararo
French rider Fabio Quartararo has not had the best of his times in the recent races of the current MotoGP 2022 Championship. This has helped his main title rival Francesco Bagnaia edge closer to him in the points table, and going into the Australian MotoGP race at the Phillip Island Circuit, the Italian was only two points behind the Yamaha racer. As the 2021 MotoGP World Champion, Fabio has the huge responsibility of defending his title for a second time, even though his motorbike setup is not at par with the Ducatis this year.
While Quartararo has won 3 Grands Prix in the current season, Bagnaia has made it to a whopping 6 race wins. Yet, the Frenchman managed to keep his lead in the Championship table because of Bagnaia’s crashes which caused him to retire with no points from several races where Quartararo maintained a consistent result. But in Australia, the table was turned completely, as Bagnaia went up to P1 in the table with a third-place finish while Fabio crashed out.
Had Fabio Quartararo been able to win the race, he could have made the gap between him and Bagnaia stretch to 23 points, but now, Pecco is ahead of him by 14 points and his hopes of winning the Championship are almost diminished. Only two races are left for this year, and Fabio needs to perform impeccably in both of them to get the golden trophy, and that, according to him, is “the toughest job” of his career.
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“Not the race I expected”: Fabio Quartararo sounds disappointed after early exit from the Australian GP
Last year, the fans were witness to a very similar title battle between Fabio Quartararo and Francesco Bagnaia, and the young racer was finally able to come out victorious, with 278 points against Pecco’s 252 points. Now, this is an entirely new season, but the rivals are still the same, but Quartararo has got only 219 points with three race wins as opposed to Bagnaia’s 233 points with six race wins.
Commenting on how he plans to capture the World Championship this year with only two races to go and 14 points to make up for, Fabio Quartararo said, “It was not the race I expected, it was a tough day, especially the first mistake in Turn 4. But now we need to turn the page and we only have one job, which is try to win and it’s going to be the toughest job of my career. But I’m ready to fight for it.”
Next week, the MotoGP fans will gather again for the penultimate race of the year at the Sepang Circuit in Malaysia. The last two years did not see any Motorcycle Grands Prix being held here because of Covid-19 restrictions, and in 2019, Quartararo had outscored Bagnaia in Malaysia by 5 points. Now, it remains to be seen how this year’s Malaysian GP pans out for the two of them.
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Riddhi Mondal
(1821 Articles Published)