Fabio Quartararo admits Yamaha had a “really strange day” in its first outing at the Buriram MotoGP test in Thailand.
The Iwata-based factory came into the test full of confidence following a successful week in Sepang where Quartararo consistently ran inside the top five.
However, the factory pairing were unable to break into the top ten in Thailand, with Alex Rins 12th and Quartararo 13th after the opening day.
The French rider admitted after the day’s action that struggles with the front tyres were preventing him to be faster.
“Today was a really strange day for us,” Quartararo said via Crash.net, “especially because it’s one of the first times of my career that I didn’t like any tyres on the front.
“So, I was struggling a lot today to ride and to be fast.
“Let’s see tomorrow if the track improves and I can really ride like I want because today we tried many things but also I was not riding well.
“So, hopefully tomorrow we can find a tyre or a setting with this tyre that can adapt to us.”
While Quartararo and Yamaha have not yet identified what caused his lack of front end confidence, the French rider believes it’s a problem with the tyres rather than the YZR-M1.
“Always when there is two tyres, it happens that you don’t like one and you like the other,” he said.
“But to not like both of them it’s the first time that it happens to me. I don’t know why, hopefully tomorrow it will change.”
Quartararo to put M1 ‘under pressure’ for remainder of Buriram test
Quartararo suggested his Yamaha machine had more stability than in the past, but conceded this came from the lack of confidence with the front tyre.
The French rider said that he will test the limits and put the bike “under pressure” in the second day of the test.
“The bike is a little bit more stable, but especially because I’m not able to brake super-hard with the front,” he said.
“Last year I could put the bike much more on the limit, so I think tomorrow the bike will shake again because I will try to push the limit [in case] the same thing happens with the tyres on the race.
“So, tomorrow morning we will really try to put the bike under pressure.”
Quartararo also confirmed that Yamaha has made positive progress with its straight line speed after riding behind Gresini Ducati’s Alex Marquez.
“I spent one lap behind Alex Marquez, but it’s difficult to see if he has an 18-lap-old tyre and you have a five-lap-old tyre, so it’s really difficult to compare, but I think on the straight we improve quite a lot,” he said.
“Tomorrow we will try to make a bit more different strategies on the electronics for the start and hopefully we can improve a bit.
“Today I think we made some different things that could have worked but at least for us it doesn’t work.”
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