Fabio Quartararo: His unbridled determination to claim a second MotoGP title

Misano 2021. 22-year-old Fabio Quartararo dances with a CGI devil on a red carpet laid out alongside a strip of tarmac. The post-race celebrations are in full swing for France’s first-ever MotoGP World Champion – a stylish and talented prodigy who has already lived up to the high expectations in just his third season in the premier class.

On that sunny afternoon in Italy, ‘El Diablo’ had no idea that the spark of the ageing M1 with its in-line four-cylinder engine would soon fizzle out. Ducati and its innovations, together with European rivals such as KTM and Aprilia, would reignite an ever-tighter battle for lap records, top speeds and titles. Ducati would go on an unbeaten run of riders’ and constructors’ titles, whilst the Europeans outmanoeuvred the once-mighty Japanese tactically, outpaced them in speed and outshone them in terms of innovation.

Fabio Quartararo nach seinem Titelgewinn in Misano 2021

Foto: Gold & Goose

The following year, Quartararo put up a spirited but unsuccessful defence of his title against Pecco Bagnaia and Ducati, and in June 2022 he secured his (and Yamaha’s) last Grand Prix victory to date in Germany. This ‘dry spell’ has now become nothing short of an ordeal. Following last weekend’s race in San Marino – the 14th of 22 events in 2026 – Fabio has reached the podium just once in 61 Grand Prix races. That is a modest record for a rider who, on his way to the top of the sport, had racked up eleven victories within two and a half seasons.

Almost half a decade after that momentous day, Quartararo is sitting opposite us in the Yamaha hospitality area in the Misano paddock. The grey décor seems to reflect the mood. He looks just as youthful as he did in 2021, yet his demeanour betrays a certain weariness. “The results aren’t what they were five years ago,” he said with a half-smile, “but my potential is better. I’ve been going through a difficult phase for quite some time now. I want to get back to what I do best: pushing a motorbike to its limits, but to do that I need to feel comfortable on the bike.”

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During his third interview of the day, a certain reserve is initially apparent. He has already spoken in French, Spanish (which he speaks fluently) and English, and has been quite talkative of late. Fabio’s comments to the media expressing his disappointment at Yamaha’s protracted development cycle have become more explicit.

Quartararo began 2026 by stating, “We’re not capable of being fast,” at the first race in Thailand. In subsequent comments, he referred to Yamaha’s lack of progress and his own underperformance, whilst letting his impatience show. His move to Honda for the 2027 and 2028 seasons had already been the subject of intense speculation even before Fabio had even ridden the V4-M1, casting a shadow over the crumbling relationship, which has now lasted seven seasons and is the second-longest in MotoGP (alongside Bagnaia and Ducati; another partnership set to end next year).

At Misano last Thursday, Quartararo admitted that he and Yamaha had held a “private business meeting” following the Aragon Grand Prix to prevent further public tensions during the final three months of his contract. “I think, out of frustration, we said things that perhaps weren’t entirely accurate,” he admitted at his press conference. “We met last week and sorted everything out.”

He is, of course, not the first to suffer from the psychological strain caused by technical problems. Márquez left Honda diplomatically with the same concerns, and Bagnaia’s time at Ducati is also coming to an abrupt end. Fabio, however, is the last major star from Yamaha’s earlier run of success in MotoGP, which began in 2004 with Valentino Rossi and also featured Jorge Lorenzo and Maverick Viñales. On his debut in 2019, he was a satellite rider – at a time when the Petronas team (which later became the Trackhouse Aprilia team) was technically less on a par and received less attention than the factory team featuring Rossi and Viñales.

Massimo Meregalli

Foto: Gold & Goose

“I can still picture him getting on a MotoGP bike for the first time; that was at the test in Sepang, he was riding for Petronas and took everyone by surprise, because right from the first few laps he showed incredible speed and pretty quickly became the benchmark at Yamaha, even though he was riding for a satellite team,” recalled Massimo Meregalli, the current team director of the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team. “The pole position at Jerez in his first year was incredible. No one else could match that cornering speed. When they [the other Yamaha riders] checked the data, they could see the speed, but they couldn’t replicate it.”

Quartararo and Yamaha fell victim to the young Frenchman’s own brilliance – much as Marc Márquez had experienced at Honda. Following the 2021 season opener in Qatar, which Viñales won, Quartararo then went his own way as the brand’s standout rider. “The problems we’d had year after year were ‘masked’ by him and what he was capable of,” Meregalli admitted. “Valentino had problems, as did Maverick and Dovi [Andrea Dovizioso], but Fabio was still very fast. He masked the problems, but then the limitations he’d had from the start [gradually] became a problem.”

Yamaha’s slump was partly self-inflicted. Lorenzo’s 2015 world championship title was the last one until 2021. “If you lose one or two years in racing [without success], then [in reality] it’s more,” Meregalli admitted. “We had some [structural] problems, and Valentino had already highlighted them ten years ago, but somehow we carried on with them. Okay, we had the best riders, and the bike was running well, and perhaps the others weren’t as good back then as they are today: all of that enabled us to survive, but not to make progress.”

“There’s fierce competition between the manufacturers,” he added. “Ducati has really raised performance and technology to a high level, and other European manufacturers have been very active and have reacted quickly. It was different for us, but now we’ve strengthened our team with staff from other manufacturers and are expanding our knowledge. We’re really gaining momentum now, but the others aren’t standing still!”

The company is going “full throttle” for 2026 to overcome the stagnation. The results so far point to another fruitless season, yet behind the scenes, change is brewing. “I think everyone currently involved in our project would agree that there’s a different way of working,” revealed Meregalli. “There’s really good collaboration between Europe and Japan, which probably wasn’t necessary in the past, as everything was developed in Japan and handled logistically in Italy. That’s no longer the case today. Our workshop [in Lesmo, Milan] is getting bigger and bigger. We’re developing lots of things, both aerodynamics and electronics. There are more synergies between YMR [Yamaha Motor Racing, in Lesmo] and YMC [Yamaha Motor Corporation in Iwata].’

Fabio Quartararo

Foto: Gold & Goose

It was precisely this development that Quartararo had foreseen (or had been promised) when he signed his latest contract extension in early 2024. Any doubts he may have had at the time are likely to have been dispelled by a contract that made him one of (if not the) highest-paid riders on the grid. His leap of faith and Yamaha’s desire to retain one of the sport’s once-in-a-century talents underpinned their persistence with the slow corner. He secured five pole positions in 2025, when the team introduced an improved inline-four engine with more horsepower, and came close to victory at the British Grand Prix before the rear suspension height adjustment system (Device) failed. The Frenchman’s gestures of despair were among the most heart-wrenching scenes of recent years.

“In 2023 and 2024, the results didn’t come, but in 2025 I sensed potential in qualifying and made the most of those opportunities,” said Fabio about the final grand appearance of the inline M1. “I was fast. To myself, I could say: ‘I know what I need … and I can do it.’ That gave me the feeling that I wouldn’t lose. I knew my capabilities.”

Ironically, those fleeting, better days in 2025 probably only heightened Quartararo’s sense of urgency. When he tested the raw V4 in September of that same year, he got a taste of what 2026 would bring and the scale of the task ahead of him. “When we tried out the bike in Barcelona, the feeling wasn’t particularly good; that’s normal, as the project was brand new, but the feeling is really, really similar to how it was in September,” he said in Thailand in March this year. “We’d expected to take a much bigger step forward, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. So we’ve already got off to a much slower start than last year.”

A move away from Yamaha subsequently became more likely. He wanted to race and enjoy his work again, and had had enough of testing – something Yamaha had taken full advantage of thanks to the most generous tier of MotoGP’s technical concessions rules.

Throughout 2024, he often made a gesture of bringing his thumb to his chin to describe how he was pushing the M1 to its limits. By the start of 2026, his despondency had not really lifted. “It’s difficult because, to be honest, I’m not really enjoying the situation as I can’t push myself to my limits, like I did in qualifying last year,” he said at Misano. “I was able to enjoy it [last year]. Now I’m not having any fun on the bike anymore, but sometimes – like this year at Le Mans, where things went much better than expected – you seize the moment and enjoy it.”

Quartararo, together with Zarco, has helped turn the French Grand Prix at Le Mans into a spectacular event attracting record crowds – a must for any fan wishing to enjoy the unique atmosphere and the ultimate MotoGP experience. His openness has made him popular with many fans outside his home country. Be it his style of dress, the otherworldly performances with which he consistently bends the Yamaha to his will, or his mental fortitude.

“He might not agree with me, but his weakness is that he sometimes struggles to keep his emotions in check,” said Meregalli. The Italian does, however, understand Quartararo’s waning patience.

“I don’t like to use the word ‘frustration’, but when you see how much effort we’re putting in and then don’t see any results, it’s tough,” said Meregalli. “The most important thing is that we don’t give up. The fact that we were able to launch a new project and develop two projects in the same year was very demanding. 2026 is difficult, but we simply wanted to give a preview of next year. We knew from the start that it would be difficult; we thought we’d improve in the second half of the year, but there were a few problems along the way. The resources, effort and investment we’re putting in are enormous. Next season is a completely new year, and the changes to the regulations and the riders will provide extra motivation.”

Yamaha and Quartararo will be similarly motivated and well prepared next year, though not together. With Jorge Martín and Ai Ogura, the blue camp will be fielding two new riders in the works team for the first time this century. Meanwhile, Fabio hopes that Honda’s research and development department can be faster and more effective than that of his current employer, as HRC is also aiming for a fresh start.

It might well be a case of out of the frying pan into the fire for him. However, he refuses to dwell on such thoughts. “When this new chapter begins, I have to approach it as if I were going to war,” he explained. “I don’t know why I’m drawing this comparison, but it’s like a dog: if it hasn’t eaten for three days and you then give it food, it’ll bite. That’s how I feel. I want to be fully prepared when everything comes together so I can deliver.”