Why Quartararo's Portugal win wasn't only vital for his MotoGP title hopes

Having romped to five wins in 2021 on his way to becoming France’s first ever MotoGP world champion, few would have thought it would take until the fifth round of 2022 at the Portuguese Grand Prix before Fabio Quartararo stood on the top step of the podium. Not since last August’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone has La Marseillaise rung out over a circuit PA to celebrate a Quartararo victory.

The start to 2022 has been far tougher than Yamaha would have hoped. But for most onlookers – and perhaps even Quartararo himself – it wasn’t unexpected. Yamaha made little inroads in finding more horsepower from its 2022 bike, having regularly occupied the bottom of MotoGP’s speed charts in 2021.

It was the main thing Quartararo spent the second half of last year requesting and couldn’t hide his frustrations when the 2022 prototype he tested at Jerez in November remained decidedly pedestrian in a straightline. Such was his displeasure, he announced he wouldn’t sign any new deal with Yamaha until he’d seen what bike it would bring him at the Sepang pre-season test in February of this year. Predictably, Yamaha hadn’t magicked anymore horses out of its engine and Quartararo proclaimed that his future prospects were still open.

Across the first four races of 2022, Quartararo scored just one podium in the wet Indonesian GP. In Qatar – where he won in 2021 – he was a distant ninth; in Argentina he scrabbled for grip and got mired in a pack he couldn’t fight on his way to eighth; and at Austin – where he was second last October – he could do no more than seventh. It was a run of results which left Quartararo dejected.

“It was quite a long time since I achieved the victory, I think it was in August at Silverstone,” Quartararo said after dominating at Portimao by 5.4 seconds from Pramac’s Johann Zarco. “But also the tough times that I had this year. It was a short time, four races, but when you win the championship you always want to fight again for the championship.

Quartararo has blamed a lack of top speed from his Yamaha for a tough start to 2022

Photo by: Akhil Puthiyedath

“For me it was tough to accept that I was happy to finish seventh in Austin, because I improved a lot my race pace from the previous year [when I was second]. We have not made a massive improvement on the bike, we know what is going on.”

The reality however is that ahead of Portugal, Quartararo wasn’t that far off in the standings. Such has been the unpredictable nature of the championship, scoring points meant he was just 17 points from erstwhile standings leader Enea Bastianini, who crashed out of the Portimao race.

The next best Yamaha in the championship at that stage was Quartararo’s factory team-mate Franco Morbidelli, who has struggled to break the top 10 on the same 2022-spec M1. And RNF Racing’s Andrea Dovizioso on the third 2022 Yamaha was outside of the top 20. In that Austin race, Quartararo was 23s clear of the next-best Yamaha, which again was Morbidelli in 16th. Their best lap times were some seven tenths apart.

"Fabio has a great experience with the bike, and he is very aware of the package, he’s very aware of how to handle the package. And we are not, at the moment" Franco Morbidelli

In Portugal, Quartararo was the only Yamaha rider to make it into Q2 and put his bike fifth on the grid. You had to go back to Dovizioso in 16th to find the next M1. In the race, Dovizioso was the second-best Yamaha in 11th – 29.029s adrift as Quartararo stormed to victory. The Frenchman also set the fastest lap of the race with a 1m39.435s, some eight tenths quicker than the next fastest Yamaha’s best race lap. Again, that ‘honour’ went to Dovizioso.

In context then, Quartararo has finished every race as the top Yamaha rider so far in 2022 and even his bad results are nothing compared to that of his stablemates. So why is there this discrepancy?

Morbidelli, when asked by Autosport in Portugal for his explanation, believes it is this: “Fabio has a great experience with the bike, and he is very aware of the package, he’s very aware of how to handle the package. And we are not, at the moment.”

Dovizioso, when asked the same question, added: “Fabio is braking really late and wide with angle, and releasing [the brakes] and making the speed in the corners. This is where he is making the difference. And on the right corners, he’s able to make less angle, and that’s the reason why he has a bit more grip on the right.”

Quartararo has managed to extract pace out of the 2022 Yamaha that nobody else has found - leaving Morbidelli and Dovizioso far behind in Portugal

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Ask Quartararo for his version of events – which Autosport did in Portugal – and, unsurprisingly it is completely different.

Morbidelli’s reasoning doesn’t quite tally. While he has ridden a two-year-old Yamaha for the past few years before his factory step, the DNA of the M1 hasn’t exactly radically changed – that's something Dovizioso noted when comparing the 2022 bike with the 2012 version he rode at Tech3 10 years ago. Dovizioso did observe that the bike’s weak points had gotten bigger and were being magnified by the improvements made by the rest of the field. But both continue to complain about the lack of rear grip the M1 has.

While Quartararo has made mention of the fact the M1 needs grip to work, he doesn’t buy into the theory put forward by his colleagues that the Yamaha actually lacks rear grip as such: he believes the grip problems they seem to believe is a flaw with the rear of the bike actually stems from the lack of horsepower the M1 has.

“I jumped onto the Yamaha in MotoGP in the same year as Franco,” Quartararo said when Autosport put Morbidelli’s comments to him at Portimao. “So, I don’t know why I have more experience than him on the bike. For me, it’s quite clear that many riders, let’s say, think that we miss rear grip. It’s not true. We could see out of the last corner [at Portimao], I would never have overtaken Joan [Mir] if I didn’t have grip.

“Of course, if you ask all the riders on the grid what they want, it’s rear grip because we will go faster. What is missing is the top speed, but I mean our bike is fantastic. If I need to say something about what I can improve, apart from the top speed, I don’t know. We had a lot of turning, the braking stability was good, so for me the bike is working super good.

“But it’s true that [in a track like] Argentina when you have a long straight, you need to make kind of a V corners, you are lost because you cannot make corner speed, you cannot make a round turn. And this is why we are struggling so much and you use the tyre much more. So then you think it’s the rear grip, but it all comes from the [lack of] top speed.”

So why can’t the others simply ride around this in the way Quartararo is? From Morbidelli’s point of view, he’s still trying to find a base set-up that will allow him to ride the 2022 bike like the 2019 version he won three races on in 2020. For Dovizioso, the way to ride the Yamaha – and in particular, in the way Quartararo does to best extract the most from the bike – is completely alien to him because he spent eight years riding a Ducati.

Changing your riding style like the flick of a switch is nigh-on impossible to do in MotoGP. You only have to look at the struggles Marc Marquez is having on the 2022 Honda right now to see that.

Quartararo's first win of 2022 has put him back to the top of the standings and puts him in a strong position for contract negotiations

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

So now Quartararo, having dominated in Portugal, leads the championship for the first time in 2022. He's level on 69 points with Suzuki’s Alex Rins, after the Spaniard's stellar rampage through the pack from 23rd to fourth last weekend.

Portimao was a “50/50” track for Yamaha in terms of success, according to Quartararo, as the layout suits the M1 – but is a nightmare if he gets stuck behind any bikes much faster than his. Heading to Jerez next week, where Quartararo has won at twice before (and should have done for a third time in 2021 when arm pump intervened), and another track where Yamaha has always been strong in Le Mans, there is a sense the start to the European season was a vital one for Quartararo’s title hopes. Indeed, he said on Thursday in Portugal that he and Yamaha “are not allowed to make mistakes” now.

Portimao was an important moment in that respect for Quartararo. But more crucially, it suddenly puts him into a much stronger position in his negotiations with Yamaha over a 2023 deal.

Quartararo’s manager Eric Mahe revealed during the Austin weekend that rival manufacturers had been in touch about securing the world champion’s services for 2023. Quartararo didn’t deny this, but batted away suggestions he was looking for an exit from Yamaha.

Given how particular the Yamaha has been in terms of performance this season, the marque faces a situation similar to Honda in years gone by in that it had a bike that could only be ridden by one rider in Marquez

Ultimately, Yamaha will be the only manufacturer willing – and able – to give him what he wants from a new contract. Quartararo’s current contract is thought to be worth around €4million per year. It’s very likely Mahe has asked Yamaha to pay something at least triple that, given the Japanese marque is now fielding a world champion.

Why there has been no news on Quartararo’s future is almost certainly a result of both parties not meeting on the money front. But now Mahe and Quartararo have a major bargaining chip in their back pocket.

He is by far the best Yamaha rider out there, and while its other runners are scrabbling about for explanations as to why they are so far off the pace, Quartararo is proving that the 2022 bike isn’t actually that bad. Right now, he is the only one going to win races on it and fight for the championship.

Given how particular the Yamaha has been in terms of performance this season, the marque faces a situation similar to Honda in years gone by. Then, it had a bike that could only be ridden by one rider in Marquez. It stuck its hand in its pockets, to the rumoured tune of around €25million a year for four years, when it re-signed him at the start of 2020 because it knew it wasn’t going to find success elsewhere.

Quartararo is already doing enough in 2022 to justify a lucrative new Yamaha contract. And if he keeps up his Portimao form into the next races, Yamaha will have no defence against not giving him what he wants for 2023…

Will Quartararo remain a Yamaha rider in 2023?

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images