Fabio Quartararo (Petronas Yamaha SRT) ends Friday at the VisitQatar Grand Prix in a fantastic fifth position, setting a 1:54.154 in FP2 to give himself a great chance of grabbing an automatic Q2 place.
The MotoGP™ rookie raised eyebrows to end the Qatar Test in P2 ahead of the opening weekend’s action and with a P5 on Day 1, how was the Frenchman feeling? Second fastest Yamaha, ahead of teammate Franco Morbidelli and quicker than nine-time World Champion Valentino Rossi (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) on very similar machinery bodes well:
“For sure we have made a really positive start to our first day in MotoGP, in our first official Grand Prix. We know that FP2 is really important to get into Q2 directly, so I think we did a really good job. Tomorrow we will keep working in the same way. I made some mistakes on my fastest lap but I’m really happy also about the pace we have with the used tyre.”
Quartararo has taken to the YZR-M1 like a duck to water. But the 19-year-old isn’t getting carried away with his fantastic start: “It’s true that it’s, let’s say, an ‘easy bike’ but for sure it’s a bike that I’ve been able to adapt to really quick,” commented Quartararo.
“We’ve had three days of testing at this track so now we will need to keep calm because when we arrive in Argentina for the first practice it will be really difficult.”
Before Argentina comes around, the number 20 rider has qualifying and his maiden MotoGP™ race to tackle. Tune into FP3 to see if Quartararo can consolidate his provisional automatic Q2 place in FP3 at 15:15 local time, with Q1 going green at 20:00 and Q2 at 20:25.