Fabio Quartararo has challenged Yamaha to make further gains with its M1 machine after sampling the 2022 evolution of the bike in the two-day Jerez post-season test.
The 2021 MotoGP world champion suffered a tough final part of the year as Ducati-as well as Honda’s Marc Marquez-came to the fore and more often than not outpaced the Frenchman, his last victory coming at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in August as Francesco Bagnaia won four of the final six encounters.
Despite ultimately wrapping up a maiden title with two rounds to spare thanks to an ultra-consistent campaign, Quartararo was vocal across the final few weekends on the need for Yamaha to make gains with the power output from its prototype if it was to stave off an attack from Ducati and Honda-who will bring a brand new challenger- in 2022, though after two days testing the upgraded bike at Jerez he was left wanting more.
The nine-time premier class race winner declared that “we still didn’t really find something positive” due to only managing a best lap-time similar to the 2021-spec package, while admitting the bike was still lacking “power and top speed.”
“It’s been a busy day because we tested many things, though we still didn’t really find something positive,” rued Quartararo.
“We need to see what happened today because the laptime with the new bike was really similar to the old one, and the feeling was a bit better with the old one.
“We still have the winter and Yamaha knows what they need to do to improve a lot so I hope we’ll be 100% focussed on the things we asked for.
“We are missing power, top speed more than anything and we also have a lot of wheelie compared to the other bikes and the rear grip is not the best so that’s the three things I’m looking at for next year.
“The Misano (test) engine was the first base (of 2022 engine), this is exactly the same engine as it was there so of course this is not enough, we need much more power to fight and we need more steps.”
