Fabio Quartararo says his lowly seventh place in the Malaysian grand prix at Sepang was the result of a ‘disastrous’ opening tour that saw him drop from pole to eighth.
Quartararo-as well as Petronas SRT team-mate Franco Morbidelli-had looked to be in imperious form across Friday and Saturday, the pair having led every practice session between them before the Frenchman bagged pole position with Morbidelli just behind in third.
The duo were expected to fight for the win on Sunday alongside Maverick Vinales, but while the factory Yamaha pilot went on to dominate the race and win the Petronas SRT M1’s went backwards.
Quartararo got a poor start and opening lap and slipped to eighth, while Morbidelli was shuffled quickly back through the pack until they were running nose-to-tail.
They failed ti make any more progress across the 20-lap encounter, Morbidelli ultimately leading home Quartararo in sixth and seventh-9.9 and 12.8 seconds behind Vinales at the line.
Quartararo revealed that he had struggled badly with getting his satellite M1 machine stopped from the beginning of the race, believing this was why he was able to make little progress after dropping back early on.
“It was a really tough race, I struggled a lot,” explained a crest-fallen Quartararo.
“My first lap was a total disaster and I struggled a lot to stop the bike, which is something that hasn’t bothered me over the whole weekend until the race, unfortunately we had a lot of problems.
“That’s why we couldn’t make the result we wanted, we had the pace to fight for something much better so we need to go back and check exactly what happened.”
Morbidelli on the other hand was more positive having taken the independent rider’s victory, while Malaysia was only the fourth time this season he has beaten Quartararo in his rookie campaign.
The 2017 Moto2 world champion felt that it more down to a general lack of grip that the Petronas SRT twins were unable to translate their excellent Friday and Saturday speed to the squad’s home race on Sunday.
“I got a good start and I felt I could fight for the podium during the race, but unfortunately during the race we always struggle with grip a bit more compared to the others and we need to understand why,” said Morbidelli.
“It was a good race nonetheless as I managed to get top independent and had a good fight with Fabio (Quartararo) so I’m sure it was a nice race to watch for all of the Malaysian fans, and in the meantime we’ll try to come back stronger at Valencia.”
Quartararo’s seventh place finishing result also signified the end of his fight for third in the rider’s standings, having now fallen too far behind Vinales to catch up in the season finale at Valencia in two weeks time.
He does though remain in command of the independent rider’s trophy, needing to score just three points at Valencia to take the spoils regardless of what closest challenger Jack Miller does.
The Petronas SRT team meanwhile wrapped up the independent teams title in their debut year in the premier class with a round to spare at home in Malaysia, having extended their advantage to an unassailable 77 points over LCR Honda.
Discussion about this post