Fabio Quartararo rued that the only positive he could find from his tough MotoGP season-opening Portuguese Grand Prix weekend was that he could “clearly see where our problem is.”
The Yamaha rider was left on the back foot towards the beginning of the event having qualified only 11th for both Saturday’s sprint race and Sunday’s grand prix, Quartararo failing to score in the former encounter after taking tenth.
The 2021 MotoGP world champion then struggled to make progress after a compromised start in the full-length race – where he took the wrong line in the opening corners and dropped to 14th – eventually taking the chequered flag eighth, a result that already leaves him 29 points adrift of series leader Francesco Bagnaia, who enjoyed a double-victorious weekend for Ducati.
Despite showing decent pace when running alone – Quartararo crossing the line only half-a-second down on fourth-placed Johann Zarco despite his heavily compromised contest – he was left underwhelmed with the speed shown from he and Yamaha having dominated the race this time last year.
Quartararo remarked that the only positive of the Portuguese GP was that he could “clearly see where our problem is”, adding that he feels a lack of grip in the centre of the tyre – though didn’t elaborate on whether the issue was more prevalent under braking or traction, the two areas affected most by a shortcoming in tyre centre grip.
“The race was difficult because to fight for what we wanted was not possible today, first of all because of qualifying was bad but secondly while the start wasn’t so bad, the lines I chose for the first corners were not great,” explained Quartararo.
“We came back and our pace was not bad but we have to keep working to see where we can make more of an improvement.
“The way we are riding and grip we are losing on the centre of the tyre is so much, this is the area we have to look at improving.
“It’s difficult to find positives after the weekend but the good thing is that in the race I was behind all the manufacturers and I could clearly see where our problem is, that’s the only positive.”
