If on the first day of testing in Malaysia, Fabio Quartararo was not present in the top10, this Saturday he finished in fourth position, stopping the clock at 1’58.897, just 161 thousandths behind the leader Jorge Martin. But what bodes well for the French champion were the sensations he felt astride the M1, especially at top speeds. His Yamaha has indeed touched 335.4 km/hslightly slower than the official Ducatis who reached 336.4 km/h: “In that moment I was alone on the track, so it’s very promising. Yamaha doesn’t give up, the top speed is good, but the aerodynamics are a bit light. So finding an aerodynamic load would be interesting“, then joking on the fact that these speed peaks will allow him to no longer be easy prey for his opponents on the straights.
The overall judgment on Quartararo’s Saturday on the track was positive: “Even though we didn’t ride much in the dry, I’d call it a good day. We tested the new aero package, but it was difficult to understand if it was really better than the standard fairing and more testing will be needed. Here we have two engines available, as happened in Misano. In 2022 we didn’t have a new engine and already at the first test we knew that the engine would be the same as in previous years‘ he told the Swiss at Speedweek, adding: ‘Here we had a meeting with Yamaha before testing and everything looks much better than in 2022. I’m not worried about yesterday, I always had difficulties on the first day in Sepang, always in the same spots and in the same corners. Today went better and you can see it from the data. One thing is clear: we made a huge improvement from 2022 to 2023, one step bigger than I ever thought. But that’s not all, Yamaha has worked hard and in Portimao we will have more things available. Not at the engine level, but parts that can help when cornering”.
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