At the end of a second day of private testing on the Paul Ricard circuit, Fabio Quartararo and his entourage can draw up a fully positive assessment of this experience.
In total, 173 laps of the “5,8” could be completed thanks to mild weather of around 24° in the air, making the track rise to around 40° at the end of the afternoon despite a still-present wind. .
The Yamaha rider therefore had plenty of time to fine-tune the settings of his R1 with Tech Solutions, his team for the occasion, before taking pleasure with a machine that he was discovering for the first time.
Although this was not the objective of this work session, the times fell regularly during the second day, until they came close to the track record by a handful of hundredths: a very nice performance which was not did not fail to impress everyone present, given the well-prepared R1 in “near stock” configuration used!
Fortunately, no crash was to be deplored, and it is likely that the experience will be repeated in the future in the slow periods of the MotoGP championship, even if the young Frenchman does not wish to lose his references on the M1 once that the races will follow one another.
On the track, his style is as clean as ever, so much so that it seems like he's not attacking! His times of 1'53.4 prove the opposite...
In the box, the atmosphere is studious and El Diablo remains focused on his work but always has great respect for the people who work for him. Don't they say that politeness is the prerogative of kings?
Maybe we'll do a little video montage to transcribe all of this.
In the meantime, the final word is left to number 20.
Fabio, can you take stock of these two days of testing?
" It was great ! It went really well, and we had good times at the end of the day. But the most important thing is to have had very good sensations. It's nice to be back on a track bike and the next step will be Jerez, so I'm really looking forward to it. »
What things can be useful to you in MotoGP?
“There are lots of things, like speed, precision, trajectories, working with the front brake and rear brake, working on acceleration. So yes, there are quite a few things that we can find in MotoGP. Afterwards, it's sure that in terms of style it's totally different, but there are quite a few things that can be worked on with this bike. »
Did you think you would have so much fun on the R1 and that it would perform so well?
“Yes, I really had fun with this bike! And we see that in Superbike, it really performs well. I didn't expect it to be this good and this fun. »
Would it be useful for you to have a more prepared motorcycle?
“No, I think that’s enough. I don't need a motorcycle to do lap times but a motorcycle to train. So it's more than enough and I didn't find any faults in the end. With more hardware, we sure would have been even faster but, frankly, the compromise was perfect. It was exactly what I needed and I had a lot of fun! »
To fabio quartararo, the next meeting with asphalt will be on July 15 in Jerez de la Frontera…
