The world championship is arriving in its hot phase, despite the rain that hit this afternoon at the Red Bull Ring, theater of the 13th round of the season. In Austria Fabio Quartararo still comes as leader, but the gap from his rivals has been reduced, in particular by Pecco Bagnaia, who has won the last two races disputed by forcefully returning to the fight for the title.
El Diablo, on the other hand, did not win a race from Sachsenring and saw his advantage diminish. Then we arrive at a track where the Ducatis have always been very strong, while Yamaha could struggle a bit compared to its rivals. However, if Quartararo looks at last year’s performance, he can think of the weekend with confidence: “I felt pretty good here, especially in the second race last year, we finished seventh but until the rain came we were fighting for the win. We are counting on speed, from the point of view of pace it is not bad for us, we have to work more on overtaking, I think that with the chicane this circuit will be a bit better for us ”.
However, Yamaha continues to have the problems that the reigning world champion has been complaining about since the beginning of the season. The Frenchman is the only one who at the moment is able to interpret the M1 in the best possible way, even though he cannot always get what he wants from the bike. In this sense, the situation is somewhat reminiscent of what Honda is experiencing. When the parallelism is suggested to him, Quartararo agrees: “I think so, because it seems to me that we are playing too far from the rules and I think we are paying a little too much attention. So, I think sometimes we have to be a little daring. ‘ moreover”.
Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
At Yamaha, however, we are trying to take a direction that can satisfy the rider and the arrival of new engineers leads Quartararo to believe that things can change: “I think that for next year’s bike we are already changing the way to proceed, also thanks to the new engineer who is coming to Yamaha. So, I feel it is changing a little … maybe still a little too slowly, but at least they are taking a bit of the European mentality, especially the Italian one. But I think this is the way to really prove a lot of things. Maybe sometimes they think it’s not useful, but we have to try whatever they have in mind, we have to try ”.
Despite this, the road is not easy and Quartararo continues to press Iwata to be able to take steps forward, taking into account the fact that he feels he has made it as a rider: “I’m pushing the Yamaha a lot to bring us something, but there is no is nothing else. As a rider, I am learning a lot and I think I have improved, I have taken a step forward and I hope to continue to make others until the end of the season. “
This situation, together with a series of circumstances (the Assen crash, the Silverstone penalty), allowed rivals to get closer and now has only 22 points of margin over Aleix Espargaro, second and direct pursuer, and 49 over Bagnaia, third. : “They are two tough rivals, I couldn’t win with Marc, I had two clashes with him in Misano and in Thailand, but when you go behind him you learn a lot. With Pecco we didn’t have a real battle, but it’s a very tough rival for the championship, we are the best riders in the world ”.
Then he focuses on Aleix, a great rival on the track with whom he found himself a protagonist in spite of the accident in Holland. But the two also have a good friendship: “I don’t think I can change the relationship, off the track I don’t think we’ll fight, when we race there is a lot of respect, but we all want to win. Nothing changes, everyone’s goal is to win. But our relationship outside the competition is the same, it won’t change ”.
#MotoGP #Quartararo #Yamaha #works #rules