Fabio Quartararo has suffered a lot at the controls of the Yamaha M1 over the past two years and the less successful results seem to finally be improving a bit after the last few rounds but more is needed, he said, anticipating an intense winter.
After having a very positive race at the Malaysian GP, the Frenchman explained that what the bike lacks to be more competitive is not just grip, but a bit in all departments, as he had said before: ‘Is electronics the key? No, I don’t think so. Certainly you can’t get half a second just with more grip. We need half a tenth with a bit of all the elements’.
Although he feels that the team has taken a step forward, there are areas to work on and the rider even anticipated a busy summer period for the team: ‘We took a step forward, but we need to give more. The good news is that we have some ideas that have not yet been tested, so winter will be a challenge for the engineers’.
The rider also explained that one must look at the positive side of situations, and explained that the manufacturer’s home GP was particularly difficult:
– We can take positive points from all the circuits found in the last period. Japan was the most critical, but we passed to Q2, in Australia and Mandalika the pace was very good, in Thailand we were fast in the dry and in the wet, qualifying in sixth. Here we started in eighth and finished in sixth, after being fifth in Buriram. So it will be interesting to see the progress made since the summer in Montmeló.