Tenth place in the sprint, ninth place in the Catalonia Grand Prix – On paper, Fabio Quartararo did not have an exceptional MotoGP weekend in Barcelona. Rather, his results at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, where he had won in 2020 and 2022, fit seamlessly into the list of his previous results in 2024. The Frenchman was once again the Japanese flagship, but nothing more. Or was he?
“It was a great race to be honest,” said Quartararo on Sunday with his surprising conclusion after the race. How did he come to this conclusion? “There weren’t many crashes in front of me today, so that’s a good placing. Especially when you consider that I finished just five seconds away from the top five. That’s pretty positive.” In fact, ‘El Diablo’ finished just 5.036 seconds behind his namesake Fabio Di Giannantonio in Barcelona. With a better qualifying – Quartararo was only 17th, while Yamaha team-mate Alex Rins started from eighth place – a much higher place than ninth would have been possible.
Fabio Quartararo: Yamaha’s upward trend from Le Mans continues!
The truth is that they were more than 20 seconds behind race winner Francesco Bagnaia – roughly the same gap as in Portimao or Austin. So there is no real improvement to be seen here, especially since Quartararo had already crossed the finish line at the start of the season in Qatar with ‘only’ 17 seconds behind. But that does not dampen the Frenchman’s mood: “I felt much better than expected. We know what we are missing and we are working on it. We continued here where we left off in Le Mans. We had a good pace there, and again here. I hope that we can make further progress soon.”
Updates that Yamaha tested in a private test in Mugello in the days after the French Grand Prix and brought with them to Barcelona give cause for hope. “They help me to steer the bike better and enter corners faster,” says Quartararo. “It’s not easy to say whether they’ve given us a big step or not, because the new aero isn’t something that you say: ‘Wow, that’s much better!’ You have to get used to it first, but I think they will help us in the future.”
Slowly but surely, things seem to be moving forward for the struggling MotoGP giant from Iwata. ‘El Diablo’ has also recognised this and therefore has words of praise for his employer, which he will remain loyal to at least until 2026: “When you take a small step, you naturally want to take an even bigger step as quickly as possible. But we had made no progress at all for a year and a half and now to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel feels great.”
Change of mentality at Yamaha: Quartararo before next private test
Especially in the past year, 2023, Quartararo had repeatedly complained that Yamaha finally had to wake up and adapt to the faster, riskier development method of the European factories Ducati, Aprilia and KTM. This change in mentality now seems to be taking hold. “After Mugello, we have two more days of testing in Valencia,” reports the number 20 rider, adding: “Yamaha has never worked as hard as it is now and has never had as many ideas as it does now. We are no longer bringing out new parts just for the sake of bringing out new parts.”
“We made it clear to the team that I don’t want to test any more chassis or swingarms because we’ve already tested hundreds of them. We know where our problems come from and that’s what they’re focusing on now. They’re working in a clever way,” explains Quartararo, who is optimistic that the work they’ve done will soon bear fruit: “I think we’ll make some good steps soon.”