How Quartararo plans to bounce back from 2020 MotoGP struggles

It is a fact of life that generally nothing ever works out the way it should. Fabio Quartararo pulled up trees in his 2019 MotoGP debut season, romping to seven podiums and six poles to strike some genuine concern within reigning world champion Marc Marquez for 2020.

And when the Honda rider broke his arm in a crash at the Spanish Grand Prix back in July, ultimately ruling him out for the rest of the season and possibly a further six months from the point of writing following a third operation, few thought anyone other than Quartararo would take over his throne.

But from kicking Marquez while he was down with back-to-back Jerez victories, this would ultimately be the high point of the Petronas SRT rider's season. Although Quartararo would win the Catalan GP (albeit only just, after Suzuki's Joan Mir wiped out a deficit of over four seconds to get to within a second of him on the final lap) he never visited the other steps of the rostrum and registered just one other top five finish around his victories.

The end result was a championship lead and challenge that was ground to dust by Mir's consistency and the 2020 Yamaha's deficiencies, Quartararo slipping to eighth in the championship at its conclusion - three places lower than he managed in 2019.

"It's hurting a lot - I'm not happy about my season," a dejected Quartararo said during the European GP when his title hopes had all but faded following a lap-one crash. "Of course, when everything is going well, everything is perfect. But, unfortunately, Le Mans was already a track where the bike was straight away perfect, we could fight for the win [but it rained and he was ninth]. But it's a win or nothing, or we are super-good or we are super lost."

Quartararo spent the final few rounds pointing out how much more comfortable he felt on Yamaha's 2019 bike (he rode the 'B-spec' M1, which wasn't quite a full 2019 bike). That team-mate Franco Morbidelli on the 'A-spec' M1, which is basically the 2019 version, finished runner-up in the standings with the same number of wins as Quartararo certainly strengthens the Frenchman's claims.

However, it would be folly to say Morbidelli's generally superior performances on the 'A-spec' bike relative to his 2020-mounted Yamaha counterparts were all a result of bike spec. Shaped by the 'butt-kicking' Quartararo gave him in 2019, Morbidelli's form was largely down to his step up as a rider.

But, certainly, the 2020 M1 clearly wasn't the major step forward from 2019 Yamaha riders had hoped. Maverick Vinales has made a point on several occasions this year to tell the world he told Yamaha back in February what direction it should go in with the bike - and it wasn't to follow the 2020 path. Quartararo himself said he never felt like the 2020 M1 was his from the first moment he rode it at the Sepang test.

PLUS: Where it all went wrong for 2020's title favourite

The 2020 bike's engine lacked power, while all Yamaha motors proved fragile owing to a valve issue - which, of course, later transpired to be an issue with non-homologated valves that forced Yamaha into withdrawing two engines from each rider's allocation of five for the season after the Spanish GP. Valentino Rossi stated last month he felt the 2020 engine character and rideability was lacking, while the traditional M1 problem of missing rear grip and traction (something it has struggled with since Michelin returned as tyre supplier in 2016) dogged Rossi, Vinales and Quartararo.

What proved more troubling was the fact nothing the riders did seemed to work. Quartararo was left frustrated during the Valencia rounds because no set-up changes he tried did anything to improve his feeling on the bike. And that's not exactly a new complaint from Yamaha riders either.

Yamaha can't do anything to its engines for 2021 owing to COVID-19 cost-saving measures implemented earlier this year. That in itself may be of some benefit, because it will force Yamaha engineers to focus fully on the rest of the bike. But whether they heed the advice of the riders is another question.

"I want to work on the emotional part, on the bike, in the box and outside the box, just to have less emotion. I think it will be really important for next year" Fabio Quartararo

"Sincerely, what I can do is give all my experience and try to say what for me we need," Rossi said last month regarding his role in the development of the 2021 Yamaha. "But more or less we have similar problems from a lot of time, so I think next year doesn't change a lot. I think anyway the Japanese [engineers] hears what the riders' comment, but in the end they do what they want. They have already in mind what they want to do."

That won't be a comment Quartararo will be all too happy to read as he gets set to step up to the factory squad in 2021. And it's a comment that somewhat justifies the figure of dejection Vinales has often cut over the past few years as he keeps getting tripped by the same Yamaha problems. Both Quartararo and Vinales were pretty downbeat at the conclusion of the 2020 season, which isn't exactly the way Yamaha needs its leading riders to be feeling heading into the winter.

But, for all of Yamaha's issues, Quartararo recognises he has areas of his own game he needs to strengthen. During the Portugal weekend, Quartararo talked about wanting to cut out emotion, to be a more calm and methodical rider when working through problems.

"I want to work on the emotional part, on the bike, in the box and outside the box, just to have less emotion," he said. "I think it will be really important for next year.

"Also, to give better comments to my crew chief, to my engineers, because when you have high emotions you just say the bike is not working and you don't know exactly which part. I think it will be very important this, but at the moment I feel I need to work on that."

PLUS: How Yamaha's engine woes haunted it in Portugal

This is something Vinales has worked on for the past couple of seasons, after a particularly difficult 2018 campaign more often than not battered his resolve. Inspired by Rossi's ability to always be positive and happy away from the circuit, Vinales focused on this.

In many ways it helped him work better at the track - although there's only so much one rider can be subjected to before the smile is wiped from their face. Regardless of the tough end to 2020 on track, Vinales in his debriefs made a point of always reminding the media (and more than anyone, himself) his life off-track was good.

When it comes to hard knocks, Quartararo is more versed than most. His tough days in Moto3 and Moto2 ground away at him and, after a wet qualifying in Argentina in Moto2 where he was four seconds off the pace, he questioned his entire career. From that point, he did something which he will do again this winter.

Quartararo began working with a psychologist, later branding it a "really important" moment in his life. It's no coincidence that after he started doing this, he scored his first grand prix victory at the Catalan Moto2 GP, which ultimately set up his MotoGP move with SRT.

When he stalled his Yamaha on the grid for his Qatar debut last year and had to start from the pitlane, wiping away the prospect of a top result starting from fifth, Quartararo sought help from a psychologist again. And, as we know, he went on to score seven podiums in 2019. Now following a 2020 season that ended in a crushing low, Quartararo has taken the same route.

"I plan to see a psychologist," Quartararo said last month. "I already go a few times, but I will go more often because I think small difference can make big changes. So, I will go with the psychologist again and work on that part because for me to touch small details with the team will be so important."

Athletes working with psychologists is nothing new, but it's pleasing how open they are about it now. Quartararo is a perfect example of how beneficial it is to take care of your mental health as much as your physical health, not least in the pressure cooker environment of motorsport.

He has been very open in explaining how the pressure of expectation placed on him when he arrived in grand prix racing in 2015 weighed heavy and has remained that way. Every time he has looked within, he has always made a giant step forward, which bodes well for 2021.

But he can't do it all himself. Yamaha also needs to look within and take the same step forward to provide Quartararo a package on which he can deliver the genuine championship promise he possesses.