Saturday’s promising sprint was not followed by effects this Sunday at Assen for Fabio Quartararo. While he had taken seventh place in the short event, this time he did not spend a single lap in the top 10, since he spent most of the race in 13th position, before taking advantage of the fall of Pedro Acosta in the last lap.
“Honestly, there wasn’t really a strategy”Quartararo said on Canal+. “Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get a good rhythm from the start. We got stuck a little behind the group in front, my pace wasn’t great either. We’ll have to find a solution quickly because We’re clearly in a bit of trouble.”
“Even if we are taking steps forward, we saw that we were really struggling on this circuit. We will try to find a little something for the Sachsenring, even if it is a circuit that is not going at all match us.”
Quartararo admitted that he expected “a little better, especially in the first rounds” but very quickly he was confronted with the chronic lack of grip of the Yamaha, according to him also at the origin of the violent highside of his teammate Álex Rins at the first corner, and which left the Spaniard with several injuries. Quartararo thus went out “A little” frustrated with the race.
“With the [pneu] soft, the grip was very bad for us”he explained to journalists. “We also saw it with Álex, with the medium at the first corner, clearly the grip was not very good for us. Throughout the race, there was much less grip than we expected and I couldn’t really push at the end, I felt maybe a little better than halfway through but the pace was too slow.
Fabio Quartararo could not play the top 10 in Assen
Photo de: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“At the moment, there is no explanation because when we look at the data of the first ones, there was not really a problem with grip [en piste]”highlighted the Yamaha rider. “So we don’t really have an explanation as to why we were so slow in the race, but we’ll have to do some analysis, take as much data as possible and try to improve.”
Lack of grip is not the Yamaha’s only weakness, as it struggles “in braking zones, speed of passage, acceleration, wheeling, grip… A bit of everything”Quartararo summarized. “I think we need to improve [des choses] pretty much everywhere.”
“We didn’t make many mistakes”Quartararo nevertheless noted, Yamaha is making great efforts to improve its bike, in particular by testing new solutions on the engine. “We take data, we especially try to improve the electronics but it’s true that there is not really one thing to improve, we are far from everywhere. At the moment, the priority is to improve improve in all areas.”
Several times this season, Quartararo found his Yamaha very physical and finished the race with severe arm pain. He feared that the phenomenon would be accentuated at Assen but that ultimately was not the case.
“I expected it to be worse than Mugello but honestly I felt pretty good. Obviously I had some pain but it didn’t affect my result and I was able to ride at my own pace from start to finish, as usual. It was harder yesterday than today.”
