Fabio Quartararo finished the Indian GP Sprint race with mixed feelings: if on the one hand the position pleased him like no other so far, the truth is that it once again made clear the (many) problems of the Yamaha M1, leaving the #20 in a highly uncomfortable state.
‘I don’t know what to say… In terms of results it was the best race without a doubt, but in terms of sensations and what I felt it was bad because I could see all our problems, and it’s the same as it has been for a long time. In many areas I can see that I can catch the guys in front of me, but there are many areas where I lose out and can’t basically do anything,’ Quartararo began after the race.
The overtaking of Marco Bezzecchi on the last lap illustrates the problems a little, a journalist asked, with the frenchman replying: ‘Yes, unfortunately, because in turn three I was doing things well and from the start I was able to catch up. I had a slightly better exit than him, but then of course… well, this is a problem, but to be honest, it’s one of many that we have: we’ve lost speed, but the way we cornered in the past was much better than the others, and now we’re much worse, the bike lifts more, we’re worse in terms of grip. To be honest, I don’t see any point where we’re better than the others. That’s what’s so difficult, you’re in a race and you recover, something that happened a lot from turn one to three, and then it was like that. It’s frustrating’.
Quartaro then gave an example of how he had to constantly go to the limit… as if it were normal, despite the risks: ‘I had to brake very, very, very, very late into turn four where the wet patches were and I had to do it as if it were normal, and in the end if you check, our pace in the race was half a second off our attack on the time attack in ten laps, so we were right on the limit. The others can corner, accelerate, have grip… it’s a huge difference compared to us’.
On the events of turn one Quartararo replied: ‘Well, we talked about it in the Safety Commission: whoever does something very strange in turn one should get a big penalty and in the end it was two teammates. Bad luck for Marco [Bezzecchi] but in the end, it’s very difficult. What kind of penalties should be applied? I don’t know. We talked about it but I don’t know’.
Looking ahead to tomorrow’s race, the former world champion said he expected more difficulties: ‘It will certainly be very difficult but we have to do our best and try to fight for the best result but it will certainly be very tough for us’.