“A real disaster” for Yamaha following Italian MotoGP

The Yamaha MotoGP yo-yo was again in full swing at Mugello, as Fabio Quartararo leaped to the front in qualifying, despite his crash on Friday, only to fall back down the order in both the sprint and main race at the Italian Grand Prix.

In the sprint, he came away with no points, while in the main race the Frenchman could only finish 14th, having started both races fourth on the grid. Chattering was to blame on Saturday and the 2021 world champion was asked if the issues in the main race were the same.

“Similar but in different places,” explained Quartararo. “Also the race is longer, and the tyres get more used. Already in the sprint yesterday I felt a drop [in performance].

“Today it was even more and our bike, when the grip is super low, is a real disaster on the direction change and physically it was really, really tough.

“I think the hotter it is, the less grip [we have]. Today we know that the grip was really low and we could not make a great lap time but also the feeling on the bike was completely different.

“I hope we can improve because now we are still very, very far but it looks like sometimes we make some steps forward but we never actually do it. We do it when the conditions are perfect. When the conditions are getting a bit difficult as we see today. Behind us are riders like one rookie and two test riders, and then there are three Yamahas.

“We have to ask ourselves a great question and see what we can do because when the tracks and conditions are getting a bit more difficult, the delta is completely different.”

Quartararo was also asked about what his views were on Yamaha’s performance so far and if it lived up to his expectations.

“I didn’t expect the pole positions like that and the way we did it,” said Quartararo of his poles in Jerez, Le Mans and Silverstone. “I didn’t expect to be this fast on one lap but I didn’t expect to be that far in the races.

“It’s something that I can’t understand why we are that far off, especially on tracks where I’ve always been fast like here. I don’t know why we are struggling this much.

“We made a step forward but we can see today that the step forward that we did is not a step, it looks like it’s a step backwards.”