Fabio Quartararo insists he is “not so frustrated” following his fifth place in the Qatar Grand Prix due to having access to Maverick Vinales’ data for this weekend’s Doha GP.
Vinales scored victory in the season opener at the Losail International Circuit despite falling all the way to ninth on the first tour, catching and passing team-mate Quartararo on his way to notching up career win number nine.
Quartararo took the chequered flag fifth just over three seconds back from Vinales after struggling with rear tyre wear, something he didn’t expect after having a “great feeling” on worn rubber in the sessions held ahead of the race.
“There were a lot of positives from the race, but unfortunately the rear tyre was destroyed,” said Quartararo.
“I felt great in the first laps but then the rear tyre dropped, which I didn’t expect because I’ve always had a great feeling with old tyres but unfortunately today something happened that I didn’t expect, but before that I was feeling very strong.”
The Frenchman added that he “isn’t so frustrated” about losing out to Vinales on his factory Yamaha bow due to having the added advantage of being able to analyse his team-mate’s data thoroughly ahead of the Doha GP at the same venue this weekend, the three-time premier class victor asserting this gives him “great potential” for the second Qatari contest.
“I’m not so frustrated (seeing Vinales win) because we can see and analyse the problem really well because Maverick (Vinales) didn’t have that problem and he won the race, so we can compare data and come back for the race next week.
“At the beginning it was a bit frustrating (seeing Vinales win) but after you think about it a bit of course I’m happy for him and it’s also great for us because we have the data from the winning guy and we can analyse really well.
“We have great potential for next weekend, so hopefully we can find the correct answers tomorrow with my data guy and crew chief.”
