The great protagonist of Friday’s free practice in Jerez is undoubtedly Fabio Quartararo, who arrives at the Spanish Grand Prix as the world leader and proves to be the man to beat at the end of the two free practice sessions. Holder of the best time in the combined, the reigning world champion signed the fastest time in the afternoon session, closing the morning session with the fifth place but still making himself the protagonist.
In fact, precisely in FP1, “El Diablo” crashed at Turn 13 after taking a patch of wet left from yesterday’s rain. The impact hit the groin, but the pain subsided shortly thereafter and was uneventful. Quartararo explains the dynamics and jokes about it: “I had a difficult five minutes after the crash, I couldn’t breathe. But the pain has been diminishing more and more with the passing of the minutes “.
“I hit myself, it wasn’t even the bike,” he continues. “We put a new thing on the tank and when I jumped on it I got hurt. I felt a little stupid because I fell and didn’t do anything. But when I got on the bike and got back on it, it hurt. So maybe it was better to lie and say it was the rubber’s fault, but I have to say that I was stupid ”.
“I didn’t leave the bike on purpose, but I always fall this way. To be honest, the bike went super strong and I was right there. This is the second time I’ve fallen like this, I remember having practically the same type of accident at Silverstone. Feel if you can save the fall or not, but when you hit a patch of wet you won’t save it ”.
Not only the fall, Quartararo made a mistake even a few laps later he ended up in the gravel of Turn 5 to avoid another fall: “With the wet patch I crashed, then I had a moment when I braked too late and with the average at the front I felt very bad. I felt the tire was moving a lot and I didn’t want to take too many risks trying to take the corner and crash again. So I preferred to go straight. But that was a mistake “.
Excluding road accidents, the Yamaha rider’s Friday is decidedly positive. The driver from Nice showed a great state of form going to sign the fifth and the first time trial that led him to the command of the combined. This is an excellent result for Quartararo, who generally struggles on the opening day of the race weekend: “Here in Jerez, Fridays are generally quite tough, so I was surprised because usually every Friday we don’t go great, but today we did a great step forward”.
“However, even in FP2 there were some patches of wet and it is not the best position to have them. So I hope tomorrow, even if it will be dry, someone goes to that area to dry because having wet patches there could be quite dangerous. The last corner is slow, but at Turn 8 you can have a bad front or rear crash. It was a bit tricky ”.
Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
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