Fabio Quartararo reckons he was faster than Italian Grand Prix victor Francesco Bagnaia at Mugello, though rued the fact he couldn’t quite get close enough to make a move.
Having struggled with outright pace across Friday and Saturday at the classic venue, the factory Yamaha pilot eventually made the best of tricky conditions in qualifying to salvage a decent sixth on the grid despite lacking power down Mugello’s one-kilometre front stretch.
The reigning MotoGP world champion came alive in the race though and managed to work his way through to second behind Bagnaia, and despite closing in on the Ducati racer in the climactic stages of the encounter he would ultimately run out of time to mount an attack.
Quartararo – who romped to victory at Mugello last year after Bagnaia crashed early on – hailed his Italian charge as the “best race of my career”, affirming the lack of horsepower from his M1 prevented him from getting close enough to pass Bagnaia in the final tours.
“To be honest I think this is the best race of my career, of course I prefer to win but the way I fought during the race was good given we had no confidence coming into it,” explained Quartararo.
“I said before that if I could finish fifth or sixth it would be a great result, so to be P2 and only half-a-second from Pecco (Bagnaia) is great.
“I was on the limit every lap and I felt the bike was all over the place, I couldn’t have been more on the edge but I love riding my bike and I was having a lot of fun.
“I think I was faster, but it was tough to overtake and we are missing some horsepower but I am happy and I feel we have made a massive job because we finished on the podium and I didn’t expect that.”
Quartararo conceded he “didn’t complain” about his machines lack of power across the opening days due to struggling with “bigger problems”, the Frenchman revealing that returning the settings on his M1 to a configuration more akin to earlier in the year transformed his feeling for the better on Sunday.
“Coming here the main problem was the top speed, but on Friday and Saturday I didn’t complain about this because I knew we had bigger problems than this, so it was at least nice for once not to think about the top speed.
“I came into the race with no confidence so we decided to go back to the bike as it was at the beginning of the year, and straight away I could brake really hard and feel the front and if I can do that – even if the bike is struggling a little bit – I can be super fast, and this is what happened.
“I didn’t know where I was going to finish, but it’s great when you’re trying to be as fast as possible, I had the group 0.8. 0.7 behind and I was pushing like hell to catch Pecco because I knew to catch him I had to give my everything.”
