In Spielberg, all four Yamaha riders finish at the back of the field with no chance of winning—Fabio Quartararo finds clear words for the debacle—There was zero potential
Yamaha finished at the back of the field with no chance at the Austrian Grand Prix. For safety reasons, Michelin provided a particularly heat-resistant rear tire carcass for Spielberg. The M1 does not work well with this tire. In addition, fuel had to be conserved during the races in order to complete the distance.
“We also have no engine power. The tires are really difficult to work with, especially because the hard tire gives us no confidence at all to lean the bike, and the medium is much too soft. So we’re struggling at the rear, at the front, with everything.”
Clear words from Fabio Quartararo, who was able to make up a few positions in the sprint thanks to the chaos at the start. The former world champion finished eleventh on Saturday. He emphasizes that he did not overtake a single rider in a proper overtaking maneuver in the sprint.
“The lap times didn’t come easily at all. I rode every lap like it was qualifying. And I can clearly see that we have zero potential,” said the Frenchman, speaking plainly. “On one lap, in the sprint, we lost almost a second per lap, so we were pretty slow.”
All four riders spoke of the same problems. Miguel Oliveira confirmed: “We don’t have any grip to accelerate out of the corners. We’re lacking a lot of support from the rear wheel to even turn into the corners.”
In the Grand Prix, Quartararo, Rins, Oliveira, and Jack Miller rode their own race at the back of the field. Luca Marini (Honda) and Ai Ogura (Trackhouse-Aprilia) were able to overtake the Yamahas relatively easily and pull away from them.
Quartararo finished 15th and picked up one World Championship point. He was 25 seconds behind. “You can’t see four bikes in the same position, i.e. the last four. That’s pretty ridiculous,” said the former world champion, clearly annoyed.
“It was pretty useless. I don’t feel like I’m taking any experience away from Austria. It can always be worse, but now the last four places – it certainly can’t be worse.“
So was it the worst weekend ever? ”Yes, definitely this year,“ said Quartararo, ”because I didn’t feel any potential from the start of the weekend and we didn’t improve.“
”If you compare the pace too: Saturday morning was good, or Friday afternoon, but then in the race everything changed completely. The grip was poor and we were extremely far off.”
The question arises as to whether Yamaha was so hopeless in Spielberg mainly because of the track characteristics and the special rear tire. Rins believes that the engineers need to analyze exactly why things went so wrong.
“We need to take notes and improve for next year. It doesn’t matter if we ride a different bike next year – we need to understand why this weekend was so tough,” emphasized the Spaniard.
Yamaha continues to bring up the rear in the manufacturers’ standings. The gap to Honda has grown to 24 points.