The Grand Prix of the Americas may well take place on a circuit of the Americas in Austin with a straight line of 1 meters, but Fabio Quartararo puts up very good resistance on the handlebars of his Yamaha M200, conceding up to 1 km/h compared to the best Ducati, Honda, Suzuki and Aprilia!
Making up for the time lost in the straight in the winding section, this seems to be the leitmotif that will occupy the French driver throughout his weekend in Texas. This is certainly easier to do while driving alone during practice sessions than in a race, but it is essential to ensure a good position on the starting grid, and that is what did The Devil so far, setting the fourth time in FP1, then the third time in FP2.
Confident even before the start of the weekend, the official Yamaha rider explains: “ We have a big advantage in the braking zones and there are long braking zones here that we need to use to our advantage. The line ofright from behind is not helping us at all and I really have to push myself to the limit when braking. Unfortunately, we lose on the straights, but we make up most of it on the brakes. The track offers good grip, we only tried something on the bike during the first run of FP2, but it didn't work. We rode in a small 2'04 but as soon as we switched back to the normal bike, we were roughly 2'03. We are therefore quite satisfied with the day, even if I made a small mistake when attacking the time. Last year it was very dangerous with the bumps. If you wanted to enter turn 2, you had to straighten the bike to avoid falling. Now you can take risks in many turns and enjoy driving 100%. The most important thing was to try to be in the top five today. »
It remains to decide on the rear tire, and for that fabio quartararo did not fail to notice the long run made by Alex Rins with a soft rear tire...
« The pace was very good with the worn medium tires but everyone is going very, very fast and tomorrow we are going to put a few more laps on the soft. I think we're not that bad. Rins was very strong in terms of pace with the soft rear tire, and we still have to find something on Saturday. It will be important to do a lot of laps with the soft compound to make the decision for the race easier. The twelve laps with the medium were very consistent, and we must now compare the performances. »
MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas FP3 results at Circuit of the Americas in Austin:
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
