Yamaha: There is Fabio Quartararo and the others… 

After crashing twice during the Dutch GP race, fabio quartararo finally had to give up his arms. It is his first retirement since his crash at the Algarve GP last year after having taken the crown two weeks earlier in Emilia-Romagna. Before Assen, Quartararo had finished all his races.

This season, Yamaha has three other representatives: Andrea Dovizioso, Franco Morbidelli and Darryn Binder. With the exception of Assen, none of them managed to outclass the Niçois. Overall, they have 45 points between them, almost four times less than Quartararo who leads the championship with 172 points. 

If we analyze each of the races in detail, the gaps between Quartararo and the second Yamaha rider in the ranking are quite significant. Until the German GP, ​​Quartararo reached the finish line with an average lead of almost 23 seconds over the second representative of the Iwata factory in the hierarchy (see table). 

We can extend this analysis to qualifications. Just like in racing, Quartararo has never been beaten by another Yamaha rider, even at Assen. He is the only resident of the Japanese factory to have always appeared on the first four rows of the grid since the start of the season, including one pole position and five first rows. 

The best result from another Yamaha rider goes to Morbidelli, who qualified 12th in Lusail and Indonesia (then penalized three places on the grid). It would not be wise to compare the times established in qualifying since the conditions can be different between Q1 and Q2 as was the case for example in Portugal or Italy. Excluding these two meetings, the average gap would not be far from eight tenths between Quartararo and the second Yamaha rider. 

Quartararo at Yamaha: A bit like Marquez at Honda

As soon as Quartararo makes a mistake, Yamaha is at its lowest. In the Netherlands, this is the first time that no factory representative has been in the points since the 1994 German GP where only ROC/Yamaha or Harris/Yamaha riders were ranked among the top 15, but none on the handlebars of a Yamaha. 

Between last year and this year, nothing has changed at Yamaha. It's a bit the same thing in the Honda clan with Marc Marquez. The Spaniard makes the difference by being the only one to (over)drive his RC123V well beyond the limit. He often pays a high price, as in 2020 in Jerez when he fractured his right humerus or in Indonesia this year when he was thrown from his mount, causing an episode of diplopia (double vision). Despite his withdrawals in Indonesia and Argentina as well as his post-operative absence since the Italian GP, ​​the Catalan is still ahead of the three other Honda drivers in the general standings (Takaaki Nakagami, Pol Espargaro and his brother Alex). Without him, Honda will not have returned to victory three times last year. Likewise, without his absence in Germany this year on a circuit on which he is undefeated in MotoGP, the winged manufacturer would perhaps have avoided not scoring points for the first time since the 1982 French GP (boycotted for safety reasons)... Yamaha/Honda, same fight?