Fabio Quartararo says he got “too excited” while trying to catch the leading trio at Misano, causing him to crash out early on and lose any hope of scoring points.
The Petronas SRT pilot got muscled out at the start from third on the grid and dropped to fifth behind all three of his Yamaha compatriots, as well as Jack Miller’s Pramac Ducati.
Quartararo then began to get held up by pole-man Maverick Vinales as he slipped down the field, eventually passing him at Turn 14 a few tours into the San Marino Grand Prix.
Disaster soon followed though, the double-Jerez winner tucking the front of his M1 at Turn 4 soon after-costing him any chance of scoring points at a race he felt he could dominate.
A second crash at Turn 6 after re-emerging from the pits on cold tyres later on ended his day for good, Quartararo admitting that he tried to make inroads on the leaders “too fast.”
“It was a really tough day but it is what it is, I’ll take the experience,” said a reflective Quartararo.
“I made the mistake, I was struggling too much to overtake Maverick so I decided to make the move at Turn 14 as that was the only one I could make an attack so I decided to do it there, and it was the correct move but then Miller was in front and I wanted to catch him too fast, but I braked too late (into Turn 4) and lost the front.
“We are struggling a lot with the bike to overtake and this is a big problem, first of all I want to congratulate Franco because he deserves it but being out in front is the only way you can win with the Yamaha.
“We need to manage better and get superior starts, of course the front row is always important, so yeah really disappointed but I take the experience from my mistake and I know I will not do the same next time.”
Quartararo reckoned that his decision to go with the hard compound front tyre was the correct one, but that he had overheated his rubber while trying to pass Vinales, citing this as a possible factor for his demise just a few corners later.
“For me it (hard front tyre) was the correct choice but when I was behind Maverick the tyre overheated and the pressure went so high, what I should have done was keep calm for a couple laps to cool it down a bit more.
“I was a bit too excited because I had the speed to fight in front, and I rode too much like we were in the last laps and not with 20 to go.
Quartararo lost the championship lead to Andrea Dovizioso as a result of his non-score, insisting though that he wasn’t giving up but that he needs to “cut out the mistakes” if he was to re-estbalish himself at the head of the standings.
“We’ve seen four different winners in six races so this championship is totally different (to previous years), it’s crazy because I think it’s one of the closest championships ever and of course it can still be ours so I’ll keep giving my best to score the best results possible but trying to cut out the mistakes.”
