Sixth place, Quartararo insists: "No one took more risks than me!"

Qualifying and the sprint race had already surprised the driver from Nice, and Sunday's Grand Prix finished the job. Second on the first lap, fabio quartararo He was able to battle with the best machines on the grid for a few laps, before the lack of competitiveness of his Yamaha caught up with him.

Rather than plummeting down the standings, the 2021 world champion fought like a demon and finished sixth, benefiting from crashes ahead of him, but also managing to keep much faster bikes behind him for a good portion of the race. Having struggled since the start of the season, Quartararo began to see the light at the end of the tunnel, with his form rediscovered.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this good, even though we know our bike still doesn’t have huge potential. I was able to attack at 100%, and that felt great, especially in the first few laps where everything is tighter and overtaking is easier. I gave it my all, I took so many risks today to hold the position. At least we had a bit of a battle; position is just a number for me, but in Jerez we finished 29 seconds off the win and today only seven. That’s what I’m looking at more closely, and I think that was a positive thing.”

As always, "El Diablo" gave it his all, from the first lap to the last. This fighting spirit is something the number 20 rider wants to maintain as much as possible, confident that when he has a bike capable of competing at the front again, the years of struggles riding a Yamaha YZR-M1 that was constantly searching for its true form will allow him to return to the top.

“I’m happy because I always push myself to the limit, no matter the position, I always attack, and I think for my future, it’s good to keep pushing myself to the limit. I want to learn as a rider. I feel that every time I’m on the bike, I’m learning, certainly, but above all, I don’t want to lose the motivation to push 100%. As soon as I have the package, I’ll continue to attack flat out, and the results will come.”

Battling throughout the race, Fabio Quartararo notably had to contend with a particularly aggressive Ai Ogura. But he insists, no one attacked as much as he did this Sunday! "It's certain that no one took as many risks as me over 27 laps! What I did was brake extremely hard; at one point Mir was faster than me, and he couldn't overtake me. Ogura was very optimistic today! At least on the two overtakes he made, he was a bit optimistic."

If he leaves Le Mans With a good result in his baggage, and a generally controlled weekend, the Yamaha rider knows however that the Iwata package is not yet ready to fight regularly at the front, given the more complicated weekends of Álex Rins, Jack Miller and Toprak Razgatlıoğlu.

“If there had been more performance on the bike, everyone could have demonstrated it. It’s just a question of feeling; I felt a bit better. We’ll see on other tracks, but what I’m 100% sure of is that I can attack. In the first four races, I was just surviving, that’s the big difference. We could also see it in the qualifying lap; at Jerez, I was very far from my 2025 lap time, here I was only four tenths off. I feel like I can better feel the limit of the bike.”

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