Quartararo questions consistency after clash with Le Mans MotoGP marshals

Fabio Quartararo has called for more consistency and better alignment with regard to push-starting MotoGP bikes following his clash with marshals at the recent French Grand Prix.

Despite his status as home hero at Le Mans, Quartararo’s race ended when he could not convince two marshals to agree to bump-start his Yamaha after his crash on lap four.

Speaking to media ahead of this weekend’s British GP, Quartararo confirmed that his bike was not damaged by the fall exiting the last corner. But he also explained that the Le Mans marshals were not on the same page as far as push-starting the bike.

This in turn led to Quartararo’s angry reaction in the gravel trap, which resulted in him being barred from the first 10 minutes of Free Practice 1 at Silverstone tomorrow. It was his second incident involving circuit workers in as many weeks, following an angry exchange at the Spanish GP.

“If you want to penalise me, it’s OK, I can understand,” said Quartararo. “Because it’s my fault I got angry and didn’t want to put the bike [behind the barriers].

“But [race officials] need to also understand what the marshals are doing. They were not really together. And I can understand that it can be difficult when you are in this situation. Because also the bike was not in safe [place].

“But the marshals have some responsibility to push me strongly, not one holding and one pushing. You cannot restart a MotoGP bike if you are not pushing strongly.”

Quartararo emphasised however that it was the lack of an aligned response that bothered him most.

“Don’t try to push me if you don’t want to. Either you go full, or you don’t go.”

Having taken the last two MotoGP pole positions, Quartararo was optimistic about his chances going into the Silverstone weekend.

While Silverstone is a lower-grip track, which the 26-year-old feels puts the resurgent Yamaha at a disadvantage, the Northamptonshire venue’s straights will on the other hand offer the best chance yet to assess the recent progress made in the engine department.

Asked if he could make it a hat-trick of poles this weekend, the man from Nice said: “I don’t know. I mean, it’s a totally different track from Jerez and Le Mans. We know that grip conditions will define where we are a little bit. This is not a high grip track, so it will be interesting to see where we are.

“[But] the confidence we have right now on the bike is really good – it’s huge.
We have been testing at Misano; I was really fast. So, yeah, hopefully we can be fast here too.”

Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Marc Fleury

Quartararo also added that the engine update Yamaha rolled out at the post-Spanish GP test is unlikely to be the last of the season, as the Japanese manufacturer continues to take full advantage of its testing and development concessions.

This new engine would be a parallel project to the V4 Yamaha has now begun testing in earnest with a view to 2026.

“I think we will soon have a new engine, hopefully. And I don’t know when, but during the season we will have… not the V4!… but a new in-line four engine.”