A bitter blow: Quartararo (Yamaha) had to ride with even less engine power

In the MotoGP Sprint at Misano, Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo crossed the finish line in last place, nearly 25 seconds behind the leader. So things could only get better in Sunday’s Grand Prix. Due to a grid penalty for Johann Zarco (LCR Honda), Quartararo moved up one place on the starting grid. This meant he was able to start the 27-lap race from 12th on the grid.

Immediately after the start, Quartararo managed to hold his position. He then had an unremarkable race in the middle of the field, at times even sitting in 9th place. The 2021 world champion crossed the finish line in 10th place – 23 seconds behind winner Marc Marquez (Ducati).

“I wasn’t that far off the top six. But we had a lot of problems with fuel consumption during the race. I don’t know why. The lights on my dashboard just kept flashing – it was mad. That’s why I was a bit at a loss,” said the Frenchman, explaining his situation. “But I think we got the most out of it and achieved the best possible result.”

Willkommen zum Rennen in San Marino

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Marc Márquez

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Pedro Acosta

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Fans

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Fabio Di Giannantonio

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Start des Rennens

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Alex Márquez und Jorge Martin

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Fabio Quartararo

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Luca Marini

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Fermin Aldeguer

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Enea Bastianini

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Jorge Martin

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Marc Márquez

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Pedro Acosta und Alex Márquez

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Fabio Di Gannantonio

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Raul Fernandez

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Marc Márquez gewinnt das Rennen

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Sieger Marc Márquez

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Alex Márquez, Marc Márquez, Pedro Acosta

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Sieger Marc Márquez

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Willkommen zum Rennen in San Marino

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Quartararo: “I was in the red zone a lot”

Quartararo then went into more detail about the fuel consumption issues during the media session. “We can’t utilise the full power we have. I don’t know why, but I had major problems. I was in the red zone a lot. From the start, I used less power than we have available. That’s why I was very slow on the straights,” said the 27-year-old. Did that mean he had to push harder to keep up? “I have three mappings available on the bike: with Mapping 1, the bike is fastest. Number 2 is in the middle and 3 delivers the least power. I rode most of my laps on mapping 3, which meant I was slightly below our potential. But I still managed laps around 1:31.7 or 1:31.8 minutes – so I wasn’t that slow.”

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When he switched to mapping 3 – did the red lights on the dashboard disappear then? “No, they stayed on. If it lights up red, it could mean you won’t be able to finish the race,” Quartararo explained. “So it could have been that I’d have had to pull into the pits with an empty tank. I wouldn’t have expected us to have such major difficulties here, because it’s not normally a track where we have such big problems. But Austria is going to be very tough for us. We need to understand why our bike has such high fuel consumption.”

The Yamaha team doesn’t have much time to sort out the problem, as the action continues this weekend with the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring. Last year, the four Yamaha riders suffered a racing disaster there – at that time, the M1 with an inline four-cylinder engine was still in use.