Fabio Quartararo finished the Sprint race outside the points, in 11th position, after qualifying in 10th place. After being optimistic yesterday with the pace of his Yamaha, combined with the added difficulties of his opponents, today, once again, the french rider spoke of the huge difference between riding alone on the track, or with riders in front of him, something he has been referring to since the beginning of the season:
– I didn’t get lost, I just can’t get over it and it’s been the same story for a long time. In training when we ride alone, we know exactly what we have to do, we can make our lines and we are very fast. But as soon as we have someone in front of us… At the beginning I was with Pecco (Bagnaia), Alex (Marquez) and Johann (Zarco), but the riding style is so different that I can’t do anything, so in the end it’s not that I lost myself, I just couldn’t try to overtake. I got too far away from them.
Quartararo clarified that the confidence he had for tomorrow’s long race faded a little, due to the evolution of his opponents, but also due to the enormous difficulty felt in overtaking:
– Yesterday I was more confident (with the performance of the tyre), but I never expected the others to be able to improve so much for today. Normally the Sprint is always worse for us, so I was hoping that tomorrow could be a bit better. The speed we have spinning on our own is incredible, but when we’re wheeling behind someone… even the Hondas are riding in a similar way to the others, but for us it’s totally different. We can’t get close in an overtaking spot, it’s a big problem for us. At the overtaking points we are 5 to 10 meters behind, and we can’t try. In the last corner I almost crashed several times today in the Sprint, because I’m pushing to the limit, and nothing is working.
Yamaha’s #20 ended by saying that the choice of rear tyre for the long race will depend on the behaviour of the hard compound in the warm up:
– I don’t think we have much to lose, so I think going with the medium tyre tomorrow could be an option. Tomorrow morning, we will test the hard, to get an idea of the performance of the tyre, but I think if there are small differences in performance at the beginning, I will choose the medium.