Eighth for Quartararo in AragonGP Showdown

13-09-2021

Eighth for Quartararo in AragonGP Showdown

Fabio Quartararo secured eighth place in the Aragon Grand Prix this weekend after a sensible ride secured him eight further championship points. Cal Crutchlow had a difficult Grand Prix as he just missed out on points in 16th. PETRONAS Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi and Jake Dixon both had tricky races with Rossi finishing 19th and Dixon crashing out on lap two.

Starting the 23-lap race from the front row, Quartararo got stuck in from the start, fighting for fifth position in the early stages. Settling into seventh by the end of lap one, the Frenchman aimed to keep a consistent pace at what is one of his tougher circuits.

Despite being under pressure throughout the opening half of the race, the 22-year-old slipped to ninth as he looked to pass the KTM duo ahead of him. A mistake for Iker Lecuona then elevated El Diablo to eighth place but the fight was not over yet.

Narrowly fending off Enea Bastianini, Quartararo couldn’t defend anymore as he slipped behind the Ducati on lap 20, but with a struggling Jorge Martin in sight, the 5-time winner this year pushed on. Closing the gap, the Yamaha man promoted himself back to eighth on the last lap, beating the Spanish rider by just 0.040s seconds – taking eight points for eighth.

Cal Crutchlow had a difficult race in Teruel. The British rider, who competed in his second weekend in factory colours, slipped to 19th place by the end of lap one but dug in, passing a few riders on his way to 16th – missing out on a point by 0.690 seconds.

Valentino Rossi had a lonely ride to 19th place. The Doctor was in the fight with Cal Crutchlow but couldn’t find a way past his rivals. PETRONAS Yamaha team-mate Jake Dixon crashed out on lap two.

Securing eight crucial championship points, Quartararo heads to Misano with 53 points over second place with 214 points total. Yamaha trail first place in the constructor’s championship by eight points and Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP hold a 19 point advantage in the team’s standings.

There’s no rest for the Yamaha teams as they head to the Adriatic Coast for round 14 of the 2021 MotoGP World Championship for the first of two races held at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, with free practice beginning on Friday 17th September.

Gran Premio Tissot De Aragon MotoGP Race Classification
1. Francesco Bagnaia – Ducati Lenovo Team
2. Marc Marquez – Repsol Honda Team +0.673
3. Joan Mir – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR +3.911
4. Aleix Espargaro – Aprilia Racing Team Gresini +9.269
5. Jack Miller – Ducati Lenovo Team +11.928
6. Enea Bastianini – Avintia Esponsorama +13.757
7. Brad Binder – Red Bull KTM Factory Racing +14.064
8. Fabio Quartararo – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP +16.575
9. Jorge Martin – Pramac Racing +16.615
10. Takaaki Nakagami – LCR Honda IDEMTISU +16.904
11. Iker Lecuona – Tech 3 KTM Factory Racing +17.124
12. Alex Rins – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR +17.710
13. Pol Espargaro – Repsol Honda Team +19.680
14. Miguel Oliveira – Red Bull KTM Factory Racing +22.703
15. Danilo Petrucci – Tech 3 KTM Factory Racing +25.723
16. Cal Crutchlow – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP +26.413
17. Johann Zarco – Pramac Racing +26.620
18. Maverick Viñales – Aprilia Racing Team Gresini +27.128
19. Valentino Rossi – PETRONAS Yamaha SRT +32.517
20. Luca Marini – SKY VR46 Avintia +39.073
NC. Jake Dixon - PETRONAS Yamaha SRT +22 laps
NC. Alex Marquez – LCR Honda CASTROL +23 laps

2021 MotoGP World Championship Standings
1. Fabio Quartararo – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP 124 points
2. Francesco Bagnaia – Ducati Lenovo Team 161 points
3. Joan Mir – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR 157 points
4. Johann Zarco – Pramac Racing 137 points
5. Jack Miller – Ducati Lenovo Team 129 points
6. Brad Binder – Red Bull KTM Factory Racing 117 points
7. Aleix Espargaro – Aprilia Racing Team Gresini 96 points
8. Maverick Viñales – Aprilia Racing Team Gresini 95 points
9. Miguel Oliveira - Red Bull KTM Factory Racing 87 points
10. Marc Marquez – Repsol Honda Team 79 points
11. Jorge Martin – Pramac Racing 71 points
12. Alex Rins – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR 68 points
13. Takaaki Nakagami – LCR Honda IDEMITSU 64 points
14. Pol Espargaro – Repsol Honda Team 55 points
15. Alex Marquez – LCR Honda CASTROL 49 points
16. Enea Bastianini – Avintia Esponsorama 45 points
17. Franco Morbidelli – PETRONAS Yamaha SRT 40 points
18. Iker Lecuona – Tech 3 KTM Factory Racing 38 points
19. Danilo Petrucci - Tech 3 KTM Factory Racing 37 points
20. Luca Marini – SKY VR46 Avintia 28 points
21. Valentino Rossi – PETRONAS Yamaha SRT 28 points
22. Stefan Bradl – Honda HRC 11 points
23. Dani Pedrosa – Red Bull KTM Factory Racing 6 points
24. Lorenzo Savadori – Aprilia Racing Team Gresini 4 points
25. Michele Pirro – Pramac Racing 3 points
26. Tito Rabat – Pramac Racing 1 point
27. Cal Crutchlow – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP 0 points
28. Garrett Gerloff – PETRONAS Yamaha SRT 0 points
29. Jake Dixon – PETRONAS Yamaha SRT 0 points

Fabio Quartararo

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Position: 8th

“I‘m not happy, because it was strange today. I improved my pace this morning, but something strange happened during the race. These things can happen sometimes. It‘s a bit sad that this time it was during the race, but it‘s not a total disaster. We will work hard to analyse what happened, and next week we will be riding in Misano. That‘s a track that I really like, so we just need to turn over the page. I still think we did a great job. It‘s just a shame about the result at the end of this weekend.”

Cal Crutchlow

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Position: 16th

"I did enjoy it, and that‘s the main thing. Enjoying the race and getting the information for Yamaha was our aim for this weekend. I‘m disappointed with my position, but my position was severely hampered after the first lap contact with I think it was Alex Marquez. I had made a great start to eleventh already. I had the pace for a top 10 today I believe, but I ran off track, ran across the grass, came back on track, and then I hit another rider. I was back in 20th or something. I had to make up some positions, that was okay. I got held up by Marini after this, then I came across a 2s gap to the group in front of me. We struggled today, but it was good for information. I was pleased with my pace when I was not battling or something like that, which is positive. This means we can keep testing in a good way, because I will be testing here in two weeks’ time again."

Valentino Rossi

PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team Position: 19th

“It was a difficult day to end a difficult weekend at this track, but we know that this is not one of my best tracks. I was hoping to fight for some points today, because in Free Practice I was able to stay inside the top-15 at times, but racing with the soft rear tyre I needed to be very careful in the beginning to be smooth and not overstress the rear. We knew that on paper this tyre was faster than the medium and the hard, but the time we lost in the beginning being smooth was too great. I was able to keep a constant pace throughout the race though, but it was not enough to earn any points, which was our target. I’m now really looking forward to racing at home next weekend.”

Jake Dixon

PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team Position: DNF

Jake Dixon – PETRONAS Yamaha SRT, DNF
“Everything had been going quite well during the weekend, up to the crash in the race. I felt like I didn’t have a bad first lap and I managed to stay with Rossi. I settled into it, but then had a moment coming out of Turn 3 on my first lap and that unsettled the bike. I went off the track on Turn 4 and Turn 5, re-joined about half a second behind everyone and tried to catch them. Looking at the data I didn’t do anything differently, but the hard front tyre wasn’t quite up to temperature. It’s something that experience obviously helps with, but it was my mistake and I want to apologise to the team. I want to thank the team and all the crew members for giving me this great opportunity to do two weekends on the PETRONAS Yamaha SRT; I’ve enjoyed it a lot.”

Massimo Meregalli

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP, Team Director

“We knew we would struggle here, but we didn‘t expect the race to be this tough right from the start. We are still analysing what caused Fabio discomfort today. We haven't found the answer yet. Whatever caused it, it was a real shame, because after Warm Up we were feeling confident that we could have done a completely different race than what ultimately happened today. We will definitely analyse the data carefully before next week's race. But Fabio‘s fighting spirit and instinct to never give up resulted in eight championship points. It‘s definitely not as many as we wanted or could have scored here, but they are still crucial. Cal also didn‘t have the start of the race that he wanted. There was contact with other riders and he also lost some time battling with Marini, but overall he was riding well. He got into a solid rhythm and came really close to securing a championship point. Luckily, we can go back to ’normality‘ next week, riding at Misano where we‘re usually competitive. So the team are all looking forward to making a strong comeback there.”

Razlan Razali

PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team, Team Principal

“We saw a tough race for Valentino today and it was very hot out on track, which didn’t help. We know this is a track that he historically struggled a bit at, but I’m sure that Misano, which is a home race for him, will be better. It was an unfortunate crash for Jake, but I’m sure it’s just part of the learning process because the conditions were difficult. I’m sure he’s had a lot of fun being on the MotoGP bike.”