Quartararo Rides to Tenth Place in Semi-Wet Italian GP Sprint

10-06-2023

Quartararo Rides to Tenth Place in Semi-Wet Italian GP Sprint

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP‘s Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli both engaged in hard battles in the Gran Premio d'Italia MotoGP Sprint. There was rain in some parts of the Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello, making conditions tricky, but the teammates kept the throttle fully open. They ended the 11-lap dash in 10th and 16th place respectively.

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP‘s Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli showed courage in today‘s Gran Premio d'Italia MotoGP Sprint. The whole rider field bunched together in the opening laps while rain at the far end of the Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello added extra risk. Quartararo pushed on to a top-10 result, while Morbidelli finished in 16th place.

Dark clouds were looming above the Mugello track and spots of rain started to fall just as the 11-lap dash got underway.

Quartararo had a good start from P15 on the grid and was inside the top 10 in no time. But by lap 2 the white flags were waving as the drizzle intensified. Nevertheless, the Frenchman gritted his teeth and stayed within the leading group, at the time consisting of 11 riders.

Within the group hard battles were fought, with riders being pushed wide. El Diablo was one of them, but the Yamaha man kept it clean as he rallied back to ninth. Fighting with Aleix Espargaró, he was relegated to tenth place. As the duo switched positions, they began to lose touch with the front group. They had to put their heads down and managed to close the gap by lap 10/11. Though Quartararo put in a brave ride and briefly overtook Enea Bastianini on the final lap, he ultimately finished the Sprint in 10th place, 6.458s from first.

After an initial good start from P14, where he gained a position, Morbidelli was unable to stay with the front group. The bustle of the opening stages caused him to fall back to 20th place by the second lap. But the home hero was keen to put up a fight.

As Alex Rins crashed out on lap 3, Morbido regrouped and gradually started to move up the order. He overtook Raul Fernandez to enter into a battle with Takaaki Nakagami that continued all the way to the chequered flag. Whilst they duked it out they both overtook Lorenzo Savadori. It remained a close contest: there was only 0.059s between them in the end, but the Italian came out on top, taking 16th place with a 16.666s margin to the front.

Today‘s results see Quartararo in joint 8th in the overall standings with 49 points. Morbidelli remains in 13th place with 40 points. The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team are 6th in the team championship with 89 points, and Yamaha are 5th in the constructor‘s championship with 58 points.

The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP teammates will be back in action tomorrow for Warm Up at 09:45 local track time (GMT +2) and the Race at 14:00.

Fabio Quartararo

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP

"Qualifying was tough, but as for my pace, I was feeling okay. In the Sprint, my feeling was okay, and my pace wasn‘t bad, but the position could have been better. I had a really good start, but there was contact between Brad Binder and me which lost me a few positions - I think maybe three or four. But it is what it is. We still finished in tenth and six seconds from the front. Let‘s see how the first laps of tomorrow‘s Race will go. It will be a long race - here it‘s always very physically demanding, so we will see."

Franco Morbidelli

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP

"We didn‘t manage to get into Q2 this morning. The Sprint was also not encouraging this afternoon. We tried something to increase the performance, but instead it got worse. I didn't have a good feeling, so that was it basically. That sums up the day. We need to put our heads down and keep digging - and keep believing as well."

Massimo Meregalli

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP

"The rain fell exactly at the wrong time today, but luckily just little spots, so the Sprint could continue as normal. The riders had to be cautious though. A crash in Mugello is usually at high-speed - which is a thing to avoid! Our main regret is that we weren‘t able to improve our time attack for this weekend, because - as with all previous races so far this year - our pace was not bad. There‘s not a lot we can do for tomorrow‘s Race, but in any case, we will try to tweak the set-up for Warm Up, so the riders are all set tomorrow regardless of the conditions we might face."