Fabio Quartaro arrives at the Catalunya GP in 12th place in the championship. The French driver crashed at the last Le Mans GP when he was fighting for a place in the top 5. Despite the crash, Quartararo was satisfied with his bike’s performance and pointed out that it was the first race in which he felt his bike was competitive.
Speaking in an interview with Relay, Quartararo talked about the worst moments of his career.
– There’s always a moment when you also have to ask yourself questions, when you question yourself. There was a moment when I said: “Let’s see… What’s going on here? But not for long, because with the experience I already have in MotoGP I know what I’m doing, I know my qualities and I saw that I didn’t doubt myself and now I doubt myself even less.
He added whether the Fabio QUartararo of 2020 would be able to deal with this situation at Yamaha in the same way: ‘No, the Fabio of past years was more delicate, because the more experience you gain, the more you learn from these things too. I think it’s in the difficult years that you learn the most, because when everything goes well you don’t question yourself, everything flows, but when things go wrong that’s when you have to question yourself, be calm, don’t doubt yourself, your team, always be as calm as possible when you go into the pits to explain to the mechanics, the engineers? Everything, what’s happening on the bike, our comments and with the experience I have today, it’s much better.
He also talked about what was on his mind in 2023, before renewing with Yamaha.
– Let’s see, when we get to this point … I won’t say I’m leaving if I really don’t leave. If I say I’m leaving, it’s because I’m really leaving. But thinking about it, yes, thinking about it and saying “it pains me a lot”. Especially at the end of 2023, well, halfway through, when I saw that we weren’t taking any steps forward and had no idea how to do it. That was the moment when it cost me a lot and when I was in a bad way mentally. But from the middle of the season, I was thinking about other things, trying to improve the bike, trying to work and, above all, doing it in a different way. But I never really said “I’m leaving”.