Quartararo to “forget everything” after poor MotoGP Aragon GP

The only satisfaction that the Yamaha MotoGP squad can take from the Aragon Grand Prix weekend is that at least the nightmare is over.

Yamaha was off the pace during Friday, before a miraculous qualifying performance by Fabio Quartararo saw the factory rider scrap into ninth position on the grid. The sprint race was uneventful and uncompetitive for Yamaha’s star rider, who finished in 11th in Saturday’s contest.

Quartararo himself forecast that he could finish between seventh and 10th in Sunday’s main race, and it looked like he was on the money as he stayed in the top 10 early on. However, he slid out of points in Turn 1 after pushing the bike too far in the second half of the race.

For Quartararo, it’s a case of forgetting the meeting as soon as possible.

“For me, we just learnt a little bit with the electronics,” began the 2021 MotoGP champion. “But then I think it’s just a weekend where we can forget everything because I think we can get more lost than get the benefit. [The problems were the] same as yesterday – chatter on the rear, locking on the front, no grip.

“The grip was improving lap by lap with the rubber but the locking, the chatter was bad and I could not ride, and pushing a little bit more we lost the front.”

After a truly horrible Friday where the Frenchman’s Yamaha YZR-M1 bike jumped and slid on the exit of seemingly every corner, an improvement in the electronic set-up of his bike appeared to be a step forward. He maintains that the electronics were not to blame for the bike’s performance in the main race on Sunday.

“No, it’s something else,” said Quartararo. “With the soft [tyre] it happens sometimes but with medium, we never expected to have it during the race and we had it, so really strange. We never really had it happen two times in a row and we have to understand why. It’s a really strange situation.

“The grip was quite okay. I mean it was not so, so bad, but if I can’t carry speed then you carry less speed, you’re more aggressive and you spin more. This is what really happened with the medium and the chatter we have.”