Quartararo: Why it makes no sense to him to copy Formula 1

Last weekend, Fabio Quartararo finished 9th and 12th at the Japanese Grand Prix. He could have achieved more, particularly in Sunday’s Grand Prix, had he not encountered fuel consumption issues with his Yamaha M1 – which meant he was unable to ride at full throttle.

This weekend, a new chapter will begin at the Mandalika International Street Circuit. A day before the Indonesian event, MotoGP unveiled the new weekend format for 2027. Among other things, there will be a separate sprint qualifying session on Friday next year. Formula 1, which is also under the control of Liberty Media, has separate qualifying sessions for its sprint races.

Quartararo: “If we want to copy Formula 1, we need to bear in mind how many minutes of track time they have”

“I like the extra qualifying session because I love taking part in qualifying – that’s what I enjoy most. On the other hand, the time on the track will be very short indeed – with the new bikes and the new tyres. So I think we should be given extra minutes,” said Quartararo on Thursday regarding the new format. “If we want to copy Formula 1, we need to bear in mind how many minutes of track time they have. They’re not on the track the whole time – unlike us at the moment. We’re practically always out on the track. If we were given about 30 minutes more, we could take it a bit easier. I think it would be nice if FP2 in particular lasted an hour. But it’ll be the same for everyone anyway.”

Next year, the 30-minute FP2 will take place on the Friday before the Sprint Qualifying. “For me, having one more qualifying session isn’t a problem. Even free practice will be like a qualifying session, to really understand what you need to do. So that’s one of the reasons why it would be nice to have more minutes on the track,” said Quartararo. So there won’t be enough time in free practice to set up the bike properly and get to grips with the new Pirelli tyres? “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. We’ll have too little time in free practice. With the Michelin tyres, it’s more or less the case now that I know I’ll be racing on the soft tyre. But next year, we’ve no idea. That’s why it would be nice to have more time in the second free practice session. The new format isn’t a problem for me, but simply having more time in FP2 would be good.”

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09.10.2026 - 02:55