Fabio Quartararo sees no similarities between his situation and the one currently facing Francesco Bagnaia, who cannot find an explanation for his slump in performance while his team-mate Marc Marquez is flying.
Quartararo and Bagnaia are both world champions, both will change teams next season, and both are going through a particularly difficult spell in their sporting careers. The Frenchman, the last rider to win the title with Yamaha in 2021, will leave the only manufacturer he has raced for in MotoGP over the past eight years to become the spearhead of Honda’s project. The Italian, meanwhile, will leave Ducati after becoming the most successful rider in the company’s history, with two titles and 31 victories, to join Aprilia, where he will be paired with his friend Marco Bezzecchi.
With eight grands prix still to go before he pulls on the red leathers for the final time, Bagnaia sits ninth in the overall standings, having taken four podium finishes in consecutive races. Quartararo, by contrast, is 15th, with less than half as many points as the Italian and without a podium to his name this season.
Indeed, the last time he finished a Sunday inside the top three was last year at Jerez, and that was the only occasion he managed it. The Frenchman, nicknamed ‘El Diablo’, is the best-placed of Yamaha’s riders with 61 points, more than twice as many as the next rider, Jack Miller, on 28.
Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing
Photo by: Andreas Solaro / AFP via Getty Images
Bagnaia, meanwhile, has both Marquez brothers and Fabio Di Giannantonio ahead of him. Particularly striking is the comparison with the reigning champion, who moved to the top of the standings at Misano and has scored more points over the past six rounds of the calendar (166) than the #63 has accumulated throughout the season so far (143).
Quartararo’s repeated criticism of the M1 – whether referring to the previous specification, powered by an inline-four engine, or the new version featuring a V4 – caused tensions between Yamaha and the Nice-born rider to rise considerably in recent weeks.
That tension has been particularly evident following the #20’s complaints after Yamaha refused to allow him to take part in next Monday’s test at the Red Bull Ring, where the Pirelli tyres that will be introduced in 2027 will be used. Bagnaia, for his part, has spent months searching for an explanation for the lack of feeling he is experiencing with his Ducati.
Asked on Thursday at the Red Bull Ring whether he saw any similarities between his situation and Bagnaia’s, Quartararo said the two cases had nothing in common.
“Because Mark is winning,” he explained. “If Alex [Rins], Jack or Toprak [Razgatlioglu] were winning, I would be myself in a bad situation.
“But it depends on many things. At the end, I don’t know the relation with Pecco and Ducati, how they are.
“But in my personal opinion, if I was there and my team-mate is winning, I would be furious and trying to understand why I’m not able to do it.”
Quartararo said he expects another weekend of suffering, particularly if rain arrives as forecast, because of the weaknesses of his bike in terms of grip.
“[Rain] is not good at all, because the lack of grip that we have is even worse in the rain, so it will not be an advantage for us if it rains,” he said.
“If it rains on a track like Indonesia, where the track is really grippy, it can be quite okay.
But in this condition, it’s missing a lot, especially, the grip we miss in the braking, to lean quickly; there are many steps in this track that we need that we are missing.”
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– The Motorsport.com Team
