Fabio Quartararo (7th) on his crash: “The worst bit was the gravel trap!”

Fabio Quartararo proved once again on Friday at Mandalika that he can get the very best out of the Yamaha M1 on a fast lap. He was consistently among the fastest riders in the MotoGP qualifying session. Shortly before the halfway point of the one-hour session, the Frenchman’s front wheel slipped out in Turn 8. He was thrown into the gravel at high speed – afterwards, Quartararo was a little dazed, but he was able to get back on his feet.

He then returned to the pits and, a few minutes later, the 2021 MotoGP World Champion set his fastest lap of the day so far on Friday on his spare bike. After a turbulent final few minutes, which saw several crashes, Quartararo ultimately finished in 7th place, 0.833 seconds off the pace – securing direct qualification for Q2 once again.

Did Quartararo come through the crash reasonably unscathed? “It hurts a bit on the left side. The crash happened quickly, but it wasn’t particularly violent,” he explained. “The worst part was ending up in the gravel trap. Luckily, nothing’s broken, just a few muscle issues with my thumb, so I was able to get back on the bike. But I’ll probably wake up with a bit of pain tomorrow.”

Quartararo: “Then it catapults you into the air”

Qualifying directly for Q2 will ease the pain somewhat. “After a crash like that, when you have to start afresh and do two flying laps, it’s not exactly the best way to get back on the bike, but actually I felt pretty good,” explained the 27-year-old. “The tyres felt much better than last year. Especially the medium tyre, which usually takes a long time to warm up – this year it was much quicker. As for how the bike feels: we’re lacking grip and turn-in response, but there aren’t that many straights here, which helps us a lot.”

Back to the crash: when you fly into the gravel trap at high speed, as Quartararo did, you end up rolling over. Crashes like that can have fatal consequences. “I was lucky because the crash wasn’t anything spectacular. But as soon as you land in the gravel, it’s bad. They need to do something about this area.” How can the gravel traps on this track be improved? “They need to be levelled out to the same height as the tarmac, at the very least. They’re a bit higher at the moment, and if you slide into them, it catapults you into the air,” said “El Diablo”, describing the problem. “So I think the gravel traps are too high.”

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MotoGP World Championship

10.10.2026 - 02:35

Fabio Quartararo sees room for improvement

Quartararo was once again the best Yamaha rider at Mandalika on Friday. Alex Rins, Jack Miller and Toprak Razgatlioglu finished 11th, 12th and 16th respectively, which isn’t such a bad result overall. Why did things go better on Friday in Lombok than they had recently? “I don’t know. But last year, there were also three Yamahas in the top 10 on Friday. I think that only happens at Silverstone and here,” mused Quartararo. “I don’t know what it’s down to, but yes, at least I feel quite good on the bike. I could see that my pace was quite good, and I tried to push a bit harder. But that little bit extra I’d set out to achieve wasn’t possible. I feel quite good – we’re just lacking grip and good cornering behaviour, but we’ve had much worse riding feelings before.”

What’s possible in qualifying on Saturday? “We’ll see. In Japan, I think I finished seventh or eighth on Friday, then ended up 12th in qualifying. My aim is to get into the first three rows on the grid,” said Quartararo. “I think we’ve still got some room for improvement, because the bike’s set-up wasn’t quite right yet, and as for how the bike felt after the crash: I lost a bit of time on my first flying lap, but I improved significantly on the second. We’ve still got some room for improvement, but so do the others, no doubt.”