During the Grand Prix Sprint MotoGP from Portugal, all the drivers started with a soft rear Michelin tire except one, fabio quartararo.
Not that the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP™ rider hasn't tested it, of course, since he carried out his time attack in qualifying with it, like all the other riders. Not, either, that he didn't test their consistency, since he spent the entire Practice with two soft tires, "putting" 13 laps on the first before using a second for the attack on the pre-qualifying time.
No, quite simply the French driver preferred the Medium that he had tried during FP1 on Friday morning, on a track with tricky grip to say the least.
Piero Taramasso, manager of Michelin's two-wheel competition, alludes to it in his daily analysis, explaining the choice of the Niçois.
“This morning, the condition of the track was not very good. The pilots reported that the conditions were the same as yesterday afternoon, so no improvement. But the objective this morning was to assess whether the rear Soft was capable of covering the Sprint distance, and also to make the right adjustments for the bike. In qualifying it was interesting to see many drivers with different choices at the front, while of course at the rear they made the time attack in qualifying with the Soft. But at the front we saw some riders with the Soft front because they were looking for more grip, others preferred to go out with the Medium front because the compromise between grip and support is good, and others, the most aggressive riders, chose to go out for qualifying with the Hard front, because more support and better stability. The times: we didn't break any records, but the track conditions were not good. The choice for the Sprint, all the drivers chose the Soft at the rear except Fabio who chose the Medium, because for him it was the best compromise between grip and stability. At the front, the majority were with the Hard and the rest with the Medium. So I think tomorrow we won't see a lot of Medium up front, and Hard up front was the right choice; he was very consistent throughout the Sprint. At the rear, the Soft did a good job, he was very consistent. Few drivers felt any degradation, and only in the last two laps. The majority of them were able to push from start to finish and the grip level was pretty consistent. For Fabio, about the rear Medium, said that the drop was constant and that what he lacked was just a little traction compared to the Soft. Looking at these results for tomorrow, I think there will be hard tires at the front and medium tires at the rear for the duration of the race. »
At the microphone of Canal+, fabio quartararo said : " we didn't take the software like the others simply because it doesn't fit on our Yamaha. We're trying to find solutions to the degradation of our tires and that's why I went with the medium. We prepared more for tomorrow's race and frankly it's okay, it was. We're going to try like that, I think we've gained experience in this sprint race where the pace is different. I think tomorrow we're going to go with the hard at the front and the medium at the back to try to really optimize our skills and performance.«
In front of the press, The Devil clarified: “ I had pretty bad feelings with the tender. The degradation of the (soft) tire is quite strong, so I preferred to suffer a little more in the first two laps and try to improve the pace. What was difficult was the first two laps, because it was quite difficult to warm up the rear. But I think it was pretty good and tomorrow we'll take the hard part at the front. We didn't test it all weekend, it's a big mistake on our part, but it's OK. »
It is clear that number 20 made a sort of bet this Saturday and will make another Sunday, the latter however being less daring since, according to Piero Taramasso, the Hard front – Medium rear combination should obtain the approval of a very large majority.
Results of the Sprint of the Portuguese Grand Prix at the Algarve International Autodrome in Portimão:
Credit rankings: MotoGP.com
