The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was the best weekend of the 2024 season for Fabio Quartararo, who went straight to Q2 on Friday, finishing the Sprint in seventh position and set himself the goal of finishing in the Top 6 on Sunday. A goal that was quite close for him in the main race.
The Yamaha rider rode in the leading group with relative ease, and the crashes of Pedro Acosta first and then Pecco Bagnaia allowed him to climb up to fifth position, behind the four Ducati riders (including Marco Bezzecchi) and even ahead of Franco Morbidelli. However, just when everything seemed perfect to get into the top five, an unexpected problem arose. The M1 ran out of fuel in the final part of Misano and “El Diablo” was passed by Morbidelli and Maverick Viñales.
The Frenchman had to settle for repeating the Sprint result on Sunday, although overall he was satisfied with the race: “I lost two positions at the end. I ran out of fuel in the last sector and lost almost 10 seconds,” said the rider from Nice. “More than losing these two positions, because we are not fast with the engine, if we don’t finish the race it is the most frustrating thing. We’ll have to see, but in the end I am quite satisfied with today’s race.”
Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing
Photo credit: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
The number 20 rider could not answer whether it was a miscalculation by the engineers or if it happened because the engine consumed more fuel than expected, but he tried to solve the problems, without success: “I don’t know why it happened. We have a warning light on the bike that gives us the warning with red or green. Red is bad, and I had it for a long time. I had to ride in a different way for a long time. But in the end I am happy with the race we did, with Franco Morbidelli who was behind us for the whole race, trying to overtake us. The pace was very good. I am happy, but we cannot allow this type of thing”.
Quartararo hopes that these results will be repeated in the Asian trip: “I am quite happy, we managed to make a good pace. We know that, at the end of the race, we had four Ducatis and one behind, we were in the middle. I think we can leave quite satisfied. Of course, we have to see if we can maintain this position on the circuits in Asia. I can’t wait. If we can maintain it, it will mean that we have made a good step forward,” he concluded.
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