Yamaha MotoGP rider Fabio Quartararo says that the MotoGP French Grand Prix was “the first race this year that I feel I’m competitive” despite a late crash.
Quartararo produced one of his strongest performances of the year in front of his home crowd at Le Mans, qualifying eighth and occupying a spot in the top eight throughout most of the race.
The Frenchman’s race came to an abrupt end at Turn 9 on lap 17, but his crash had no bearing on what he thought was a positive weekend of work.
“To be honest, I’m happy,” he said (via Autosport).
“I’m happy because it’s the first race this year that I feel I’m competitive and I’m fighting with riders I used to fight with in the past, like Aleix [Espargaro].
“I was seeing Maverick [Vinales] and Marc [Marquez] in front of me. 10 laps to the end, I crashed.
“So, I feel happy and unfortunately, we crashed, but being in this position in P6 without many crashes in front of me was the first time.
“So, I gave it everything and I wanted the maximum. Unfortunately, we crashed but we gave it our 100%.”
Yamaha provided different set-up changes with the intention of providing Quartararo with a brand new feeling with the bike, but he felt as though there were minor improvements.
“We made a massive change on the bike [in warm-up] that the team expected for me to say ‘it’s completely different’ or ‘bad’ or something – they expected me to feel a big difference, but I felt a small difference in a better way,” he explained.
“So we raced with this bike. For me, it looks like it’s going to be our new base.
“And after [Monday] we will have two days of testing in Mugello, so we will have also the chance to compare in totally different tracks.
“But today I think I was riding really, really well and hopefully we can carry on.”
Quartararo described certain characteristics of the new set-up which provided benefits to his riding style: “Little bit of grip, especially going in but slightly.
“But clearly, we got the ideas of what to improve, but it’s going to take time.
“The electronic [setting] we are using, or how we are using it, is not in a good way.
“But we are learning step by step. You can see from Turn 5 to Turn 6 that our bike is always moving a lot compared to the guys who were in front.
“Our bike is super heavy, it’s not turning. But step by step we are trying to improve these things and I think we are going in a good way.”
Quartararo highlighted that despite not finishing, him being able to compete at the front end of the grid provided him with a much-needed psychological boost for future races.
“For me, mentally, it was good,” he noted.
“This is why, of course, I’m frustrated to not finish the race, but for me to battle with Aleix, to see that at the end the podium guys were in front, then Marc [Marquez] pulled away.
“But I was able to see them not too far and my pace was not too bad, because in Jerez, yes, we made a good sprint but half of them crashed in front of me and I did a really good start.
“But today was the first race where really we were able to fight.
“This, mentally, is good and step by step we are improving. It’s going to be a long way but we will arrive.”
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