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Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing, crash
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Analysis

How Portugal exposed the biggest threat to Quartararo’s MotoGP title defence

Fabio Quartararo’s first DNF of his title-winning 2021 MotoGP season couldn’t have come at a better time. But the events of the Yamaha rider’s Algarve Grand Prix exposed the M1’s well-known major weakness, which could threaten his championship defence given the increasingly Ducati-heavy makeup of the grid heading into 2022

The Algarve Grand Prix was the 17th round of the 2021 MotoGP season. It took 17 races for new world champion Fabio Quartararo to finally register a DNF in a campaign in which he has been head and shoulders above the rest in his consistency.

And it was a timely point to finally crash out of a race, because it was a day that so easily could have blown the doors off the 2021 championship battle with Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia had the cards of fate fallen differently last month at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

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