MotoGP | This is why Quartararo renewed with Yamaha

Since celebrating the title in 2021, the performance curve of the Quartararo-led Yamaha has undergone a precipitous descent that can only be compared to that of Honda, the other Japanese manufacturer in the championship. In fact, the House of the golden wing had no choice but to let go of Marc Márquez at the end of last season, after the Spaniard, exhausted, decided to renounce the last year of his contract and the 20 million euros he was owed .

The Catalan has chosen to undertake an intrepid journey into the unknown and has joined a satellite structure, with a Ducati which is not even the latest version on the grid. Marquez opted for this path to, as he said then and still says today, “enjoy competitiveness again”. It's been a long time since Quartararo had fun in a stripped-down M1, with many limitations, especially the lack of traction, and none of this model's historic strengths – handling -.

“El Diablo” completed his previous renewal in June 2022, as champion (2021) and in a season in which he fought to confirm the title until the last stage of the calendar. At the time his bike was competitive – four victories and eight podiums – nothing to do with the current drift of the M1, which in 2023 has only reached the podium three times, with third places achieved by himself in Austin, in India and Indonesia. The signing a fortnight ago took place in the knowledge that his prototype is not competitive and is unlikely to become competitive during his new contract (2025 and 2026).

In Qatar, in the opening race of the calendar, the #20 achieved a gap of 1.2 seconds from Jorge Martin's pole time. In the Sprint, he crossed the finish line 12th, over 12 seconds behind the winner (Martin), while on Sunday he crossed the finish line eleventh, almost 18 seconds behind Pecco Bagnaia. In Portugal, on a very dirty track due to dust and dirt – conditions that prevent Ducati from fully exploiting its legion of Desmosedicis – Quartararo achieved the sixth place on the grid, just six tenths from Enea Bastianini's pole position. On Saturday he finished ninth, 7.5 seconds behind Maverick Vinales, and on Sunday he was seventh, 20 seconds behind Martin.

Despite the internal revolution applied to the Iwata structure, marked above all by the inclusion of Max Bartolini as the new technical director, the rescue operation will take time.

Under normal conditions, the gap between the Yamahas and the European prototypes exceeds eight-tenths of a second per lap on most circuits. In the current situation and with the stability of the technical regulations imposed until 2027, closing this gap is not a challenge that can be overcome in two years. As long as the right measures are taken. If you don't do things right, the transition could last forever, until who knows when.

No chance to fight for his second crown

This allows us to conclude with almost total certainty that Quartararo will not have the chance to fight for the crown in the medium term. It is at this point that he increases the volume of all those challenges sent to his factory. “Yamaha is the priority because they are the ones who brought me to MotoGP. I trust the brand and I gave them a chance, but there won't be a second one,” he said in an interview with Motorsport.com in August last year, in which he was very harsh and explicit: “Yamaha promised me things in a 10-page PDF document for three years, nine and a half of which were not kept.”

Regardless of the technical guarantees that the team now led by Bartolini may have given him, the other great resource of Lin Jarvis' management was the checkbook. The approximately 12 million in the new contract are more than double Pecco Bagnaia's basic salary at Ducati, excluding bonuses linked to results. Even if the Italian were to win his third consecutive title, he would not be able to reach this figure, which makes Quartararo the highest paid rider on the grid.

There were not many alternatives to remaining in his current environment, and all of them would have resulted in him significantly reducing his income. Among these, the most solid was Aprilia, which in recent months has opened a line of dialogue with him. “What we want are riders committed to our project. We know we have a bike capable of fighting for the World Championship”, said Massimo Rivola, CEO of the racing division of the Noale company, in a telephone conversation with the writer.

The offer came from Aprilia

The Piaggio Group didn't have the budget to engage in a tug-of-war with Yamaha under these conditions, but it has a competitive bike. The growth of the RS-GP in recent years has been demonstrated by a multitude of examples. In Portugal, in fact, Maverick Vinales won the Sprint on Saturday and came within a whisker of the podium on Sunday, if it hadn't been for a gearbox failure on his prototype that left him one step away from the finish line on the last lap. The reorganization and modernization of the internal structures and work dynamics have made Aprilia one of the most innovative and modern teams in the paddock. In some areas it is even comparable to Ducati. In any case, his offer was just over four million euros, less than a third of the amount Yamaha retained him for.

If the agreement with Aprilia already involved a reduction in his salary, the situation would have been similar elsewhere. In Ducati, there is an obvious funnel with Martin, Marquez and the rest of the current roster, for the few places available. If he had wanted to get on a Desmosedici GP, the rider from Nice would have had to go through a satellite team, with the obvious financial and status disadvantage that this would have entailed.

The prospects in KTM were not very different from those in Ducati, especially after the explosive arrival of Pedro Acosta (GasGas), who the Austrian group is already orbiting and with whom its future is assured. If Ducati and KTM came out compromised, the thought of signing for Honda seemed even less logical if you take into account that the hole in which the Tokyo brand finds itself is as deep as the one in which Yamaha finds itself. With one difference: Honda is still closed in its shell.