While Johann Zarco confided all the happiness that his fourth place in the Portuguese Grand Prix brought him, Fabio Quartararo made the lucid observation of the lack of performance of his Yamaha.
Fabio Quartararo looked like a bad day. The day after a sprint race ended out of the points, the 2021 world champion was unable to fight at the front during the Portuguese Grand Prix. A good result became difficult to obtain from the start, with a fifteenth place at the end of the first lap.
“I chose the wrong trajectory, so I found myself super far behind”, told the French driver to the press at the end of the race. With a rhythm that he could describe as “not too bad”Fabio Quartararo was able to move up to eighth place but assures that he is not able to do better. “Given the way we ride the bike, at the moment it is not possible to fight with them, added the native of Nice. So we have to find a solution to the fight. »
Difficulties that “El Diablo” attributes directly to the characteristics of its Yamaha compared to the competition. “ We have a totally different motorcycle from the others, admits the tricolor pilot. When they straighten their bike, the grip is totally different from what we have. We have no solution at the moment. We cannot stay with them to try to overtake. For me, this is the main problem. »
Quartararo: “My teammate is not there to really do the job”
A l’issue d’un “complicated weekend”Fabio Quartararo regretted starting too far. “We are still too far in the way we have the speed, but to overtake it is impossible, so we will have to find a solution on the way we use our bike, he confided before regretting being too lonely at Yamaha in the face of Franco Morbidelli’s lack of competitiveness. For the moment, we do not have the solutions because, already, my teammate is not there to really do the job. »
Nevertheless, the Frenchman does not want to panic, assuring that he will “we have to stay calm because the championship is very long”while admitting that frustration is mounting. “It’s not our position to finish eighth, even if we had a bad start, even if, honestly, I think we expected much betterhe concluded. Eighth, this is not the position in which we should be, and we will have to quickly find a solution to get out of this kind of result. »
Tough… I gave everything but not the result we hoped for. Difficult moment for us but we are not giving up and we are motivated to make steps forward.
P8 pic.twitter.com/tUyhRMqeKw— Fabio Quartararo (@FabioQ20) March 26, 2023
The atmosphere was diametrically opposed in the garage of the Pramac stable after Johann Zarco’s fourth place, snatched on the last lap. ” It was awesome, he confided to the microphone of Canal +. Really, from the last seven laps I was able to have good speed compared to the others, and that’s when I was able to catch my breath a bit. »
Zarco: “A real happiness”
Long glued to Aleix Espargaro, it was at the very end of the race that the French driver decided to change gear. “When there were three laps left, I thought it would be nice to be able to attack, added Johann Zarco. A little too daring maneuver, you can quickly move away and lose places, but I saw and I felt that I was able to turn much tighter than the others, and they were starting to have problems with it. rear grip. »
Difficulties from which he made the most of in a last lap which saw him gain a whopping three places to finish at the foot of the podium. “On the last lap I said to myself: ‘Well, we should move!’, and I could really see that in this turn 11, by turning really tight, there was a way to overtake. Above all, the maneuver on Alex Márquez at the end, on 14… I really wasn’t sure, but he was struggling with his rear grip, I turned well tight, tried to reaccelerate, and being at inside I had the advantage. So it was really a real pleasure, because the race was beautiful. »
Happy to have been able to express his riding on the handlebars of the Ducati, Johann Zarco sees in this start to the season “a good accomplishment » allowing him to “start on a good run, take this confidence”. From there to playing for victory, there is only one step.