Why a MotoGP title chaser 'doesn't care' about the 2020 championship

All through 2019, Fabio Quartararo marked himself as a title protagonist for this season with his incredible performances on his 'B-spec' Petronas SRT-run Yamaha. Guiding his bike to seven podiums and six pole positions in a stunning rookie season, he had the established frontrunners worried.

And, when Marc Marquez was ruled out with a broken arm after a crash in July's Spanish Grand Prix, the rider the reigning world champion pegged as a definite title threat after their duel for victory in last year's San Marino GP stepped up to the plate. After taking his maiden win in the Spanish GP, Quartararo dominated the Andalusian GP at Jerez the following week.

The fact that, 12 months after that near-miss to Marquez at Misano, Quartararo has scored just 20 points in four races and not even cracked the top six in any of the Czech, Austrian, Styrian or San Marino GPs is a startling reversal of fortunes.

Yamaha has been besieged by engine problems this season, with faulty valves in some units from a second supplier to blame. Since Jerez, Yamaha has ordered a reduction in revs for all of its riders. That Quartararo's downturn coincided with that instruction seems too closely linked to be mere coincidence.

Indeed, during a sit down over Zoom with Autosport ahead of the Emilia Romagna GP at Misano, he hinted at a connection between his struggles on the bike (which he said last week were related in part to both the engine and chassis) and Yamaha disallowing him use of an electronics setting he'd used previously.

"I had quite a lot of problems after Jerez," Quartararo tells Autosport. "When everything is perfect and you arrive to the race and you can't use exactly the setting of electronics on the same bike, [it's] a big shame for me."

Last weekend Quartararo alluded to some "good news" that was meant to come his way for next weekend's Catalan GP - an electronics setting he "can't use right now". This news hasn't been forthcoming as of yet. When Autosport asks exactly what that electronics setting would give him, he replies with a chuckle: "Sorry, this one I can't tell you."

Yamaha brought some new items to a test at Misano on Tuesday, which included a new exhaust and carbon swingarm. He said these didn't remotely fix the problems he was having with the Yamaha, but is now getting used to riding with them.

When you are trying to take your next steps in MotoGP, this sort of thing can be particularly hard to grasp for a young rider. But Quartararo's tough run in the junior classes from 2015-2018 has conditioned him to stand back and assess difficult situations before tackling them methodically.

"I think, the time I spent in Moto2 and Moto3 was really difficult," he says. "But I've learned from it, you know. 90% of my year in 2016 and 2017 was negative, but I kept 10% positive. That's all the experience that I learned. So, yes, I think it's helping me and this kind of moment where you know you can be faster, but they say 'no, you can't use this, you can't use this'. So, yes, this is the thing. But I'm getting used to it, I'm starting to be quite fast."

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"Of course, there will be a moment when you say 'OK, I will think about the championship'. But, actually right now I'm just [thinking] 'OK, we are in Misano, I need to give the maximum to fight for top positions' and say 'OK, I want to leave Misano with 95 points, or 90'" Fabio Quartararo

The Yamaha does at least work around Misano, as SRT team-mate Franco Morbidelli proved by winning last Sunday, with Maverick Vinales heading a Yamaha 1-2-3-4 for the first time since 1988 in qualifying. In other words, Misano is the perfect place to try and regain the championship lead he lost to a slow-but-steady Andrea Dovizioso finishing seventh. Or so you'd think.

Quartararo said after the San Marino GP "I don't care" about the championship. One could easily look at this as pressure deflection, or arrogance. But it is neither of those things.

It's easy to forget that Quartararo is just 25 races into his MotoGP career and is just 21 years old. He's got time on his side and he's very much aware of that. Next year he steps up to the works Yamaha squad as Valentino Rossi's replacement - though the Frenchman doesn't see it like this: "For me, I can't replace him because Valentino is Valentino." It will be in the next two years that the expectation of winning the championship will come into serious effect.

Obviously, he acknowledges, he's not deliberately going to try and not win the 2020 title. But his focus is firmly on a race-by-race basis, trying to maximise each weekend. To put it another way: he's laying the groundwork to become a fully-fledged title challenger in the same ultra-consistent vein of Marquez.

"I'm only in my second year in MotoGP," Quartararo says. "I will do my best to win this year, but I'm not focused really on the championship. I'm just thinking 'OK, we are in Misano, we need to do the best for Misano'. 'We are in Barcelona, I will do the best for Barcelona'. I'm not thinking 'wow, Marc isn't here, I need to think about the championship'. No.

"I think to win a championship you need to win a lot of races and score a lot of points. And actually, I have really low points compared to usual. Normally after six races, we should have more than 70 points. Let's say the average is not so great. So, for everybody it's the same. So, just focus to do the best on track and thinking race by race."

Across the grid, consistency has rather gone wanting in 2020. After six races, only KTM and Yamaha have had two different riders win races. No rider has scored more than two podiums this season.

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That being said, Quartararo's approach - and indeed his reluctance to play the championship game, not least after dropping six points out of the standings lead through a crash - could actually be the best way to go about this relentlessly chaotic campaign.

"Of course, there will be a moment when you say 'OK, I will think about the championship'," he continues. "But, actually right now I'm just [thinking] 'OK, we are in Misano, I need to give the maximum to fight for top positions' and say 'OK, I want to leave Misano with 95 points, or 90'.

"But [I] don't think 'oh, I've got to make more than Dovizioso, to take the lead back if he finished ninth and I finish fifth, I will take the lead back'. It's important to say 'I want to finish first, second, third, but I want to score a lot of points'."

It'd be easy to see Quartararo losing this championship as pressure causes a developing talent to buckle, and it would be easy to question whether this could give way to a serious title challenge against someone as mercilessly formidable as Marquez. And perhaps an opportunity as good as the one 2020 has thrown up will never come around again.

But, as blindingly obvious a sentiment as this may be, no one can predict the future. The only thing you can do is prepare yourself for any eventuality. And this is exactly what Quartararo is doing in his sophomore year; feeling out where any issues lie, making mistakes (as demonstrated by his San Marino GP crashes, which were a result of overexcitement of getting stuck behind Vinales) so he can learn from them.

Ultimately, the riders who win world championships are the ones who have no weakness in their games. As such, Quartararo would only be setting himself up for long-term failure if he adopts a mentality of losing battles to win the war in this weekend's second instalment at Misano.