At the end of a Grand Prix, today that of Great Britain at Silverstone, a MotoGP rider must submit to the game of questions and answers from different journalists, even if it means repeating himself a fairly impressive number of times. , those who work for a television channel broadcasting the Grands Prix in their country are privileged since they have individual access to the drivers from the parc ferme, then again in a dedicated room, before the traditional debriefings in front of the written press and the Internet.
In France, it is Canal + who has this role and who, for our greatest pleasure, takes advantage of it by subjecting the French pilots to the heavy fire of questions from Laurent Rigal and Margot Laffite. Although undoubtedly disappointed by its final result, fabio quartararo therefore willingly lent himself to the questions of the premier category commentator who wanted to explore certain subjects in more depth…
Fabio, we imagine that this is not the result you expected but despite everything you leave Silverstone with one more point over Aleix Espargaró…
« And 17 less on Pecco! But hey, sincerely it's an incomprehensible weekend: we made the mistake of not testing the hard (rear) tire during testing, so we didn't manage to achieve our pace and it's disappointing to see that it’s only eighth place. But you have to stay strong and think about the next one. »
Was the soft tire at the front also a bad choice, or not?
“No, the soft tire at the front was not a bad choice, but with the medium tire at the rear we had a lot of difficulty with the grip: the tire dropped (degraded) enormously and that’s why which made us lose a lot of places. During the first laps, it was good, but as soon as we were behind several drivers, our tire temperature really got very high and we couldn't do anything to try to attack. »
Was the long lap a real problem or is it more the rear tire?
“No, the long lap wasn't really a problem, but I think when I was right behind Johann I only had one bike in front, whereas after the long lap I had four bikes in front and that caused the temperature of the rear tire to overheat a little more. We therefore had no possibility of attacking the drivers in front of us because they had hard tires, so they had a little more stability. But we made the mistake of not testing this hard tire in FP4. »
Fabio Quartararo performs his long lap. He downgrades to 5th place ✅#BritishGP 🇬🇧 | #MotoGP
▶: https://t.co/Q9uXtTYtRy pic.twitter.com/2QLugp5kKZ
- CANAL + MotoGP ™ (@CanalplusMotoGP) August 7, 2022
Did you ask this question before departure?
“No, because we hadn’t tried it. It's hard to leave with a tire you haven't tested. It's true that we made a pretty big mistake, but that's how it is and we'll have to move on to the next step. »
Aleix Espargaró is at 22 points but Francesco Bagnaia is back at 49 points…
“Yes, we have to see. In any case, we have to do race by race and we will see because we have circuits where there are a lot of straight lines. We know that we lack a lot of power. Today, we are yo-yoing with the driver in front and we are unable to attempt an attack. I can't do miracles and unfortunately today I couldn't do anything. »
Austria, with its typical stop-and-go circuit, what do you think?
“It’s a difficult circuit for us. I think that here, we arrive on circuits which are not the best of the best for us, but what is certain is that I cannot perform miracles, even if I give my maximum in each practice session and on every race. »
MotoGP Silverstone J3: standings
Credit classification motogp.com