Quartararo crashes out at the first corner, blasts Balaton Park

A month after the World Superbike, the MotoGP made its debut at Balaton Park for the Hungarian Grand Prix. The circuit, which is winding, has become even more so since the introduction of a chicane designed to slow down the premier class cars. The very slow first corner was seen by many as a possible collision point at the start and this was no exception during the Sprint, as fabio quartararo crashed after hitting Enea Bastianini's KTM Tech3.

Start of the sprint race at Balaton Park! 🔥🇭🇺#HungarianGP | #MotoGP pic.twitter.com/D7wyftcwNP

- CANAL + MotoGP ™ (@CanalplusMotoGP) August 23, 2025

Arriving at too high a speed, the 2021 world champion was unable to avoid contact. Speaking to the media present, including AUTOhebdo, the Nice driver explained that he was surprised, particularly by the dirt on the right-hand side of the track, where he had started from sixth position on the grid. However, he did not feel that he had delayed his braking any longer than necessary.

“For me, my braking point was correct, but I was on the dirty part of the track. The bike started to slide, and with Di Giannantonio starting to take his turn, I had to completely stop braking to avoid hitting him. Then I had another problem, which was that there were people in front! These things happen. I will be more careful on Sunday of course. Because the track is already dirty, but when braking, the bike locks its wheels, and it's difficult to slow it down. All it takes is a little wind and the dirt comes back. Where we ride, it's getting cleaner and cleaner, but not elsewhere.”

Quartararo compares Balaton Park to a go-kart track

Criticized since its addition to the 2025 calendar, Balaton Park failed to improve its reputation by hosting World Superbike last July. The track offered few overtaking opportunities, and the very twisty chicanes were not to the advantage of the series-derived machines. Much of the paddock therefore feared that it would be even more difficult with the MotoGP prototypes, and for Quartararo, this first round of the weekend proved it.

"For me, it's a circuit to do a day of testing, but doing MotoGP races on a circuit of karting…Even on foot, you could see it was twisty! It's really tight, you can't have those kinds of changes of direction on a MotoGP circuit. You have to adapt to this circuit and it's the same for everyone."

The configuration of the first corner, very tight after a short straight, led Quartararo to believe that problems were likely to arise in the first corner. The Frenchman simply did not imagine that he would be responsible for a collision!

"Honestly, I was expecting something to happen in the first corner, but I didn't think it would happen to me! You're coming into a first-gear corner in third gear where you really have to brake hard... It's a corner that's already slow for Moto2, so imagine for MotoGP."

Nothing better than Friday

Finally, after narrowly making it into Q2 in Friday's practice, Fabio Quartararo showed signs of making good progress with a sixth-place finish in Saturday morning's qualifying session. The Frenchman quickly corrected himself in front of the journalists, stating that if he qualified well, it was mainly thanks to the misfortunes encountered by his rivals!

“We didn't find anything this morning, I just managed to do a good lap. The track also smoothed out well, everyone gained about half a second compared to Friday. Us too, and I think several riders had a bad qualifying like Álex (Márquez), Fermín (Aldeguer), (Pedro) Acosta who crashed… It's good to start sixth, but it's not really our real pace. I can't really be happy with this performance. With the medium at the rear, we'll be a bit more consistent I think. Keeping our position will be impossible for me, if I'm realistic, I'm aiming for ninth place.”

Interview by Luca Bartolomeo, in Hungary.