Wednesday September 7, 2022, fabio quartararo answered questions from journalists from the Misano World Circuit – Marco Simoncelli at the end of the second day of the official MotoGP test which he finished in 1st position.
The French championship leader declared himself satisfied with what he had tried with a view to 2023... And regrets not being able to use this new engine before! El Diablo having done his debriefing at the mid-day break, no comment was made on the new aerodynamics tested in the afternoon.
As usual, we report here the words of fabio quartararo without the slightest formatting, even if it is partially translated (vouvoiement in English, tutoiement in French).
fabio quartararo : " I am pleased that we have confirmed that the engine is a big improvement. This morning I took a good slipstream behind Franco and the top speed was very good. So very satisfied! This morning we worked on the electronics because the character of the engine is slightly different. Now it's hard to know something because of the circuit, because I did 1'31.3 with a 26 lap tire, so ultimately you put a new tire on and you don't even feel it's a new tire. But I'm very satisfied because I feel that for the first version of the prototype, I had a very good rhythm and it looks good. »
Was the good top speed due to aspiration or engine power?
« Of course, the 298 km/h was due to aspiration, but generally speaking the average we did today was good. Of course, 298 km/h was not every lap but just one lap, but if you look at the average it was good. The wind also changed, so comparing with the others it was good to see that our top speed improved quite a bit compared to this year. »
Is this the final version of the engine or will they improve it further?
« They want to progress further, so of course I wouldn't say no (laughs) if they have room to progress. I think it's not bad because it's only September and there are several months before the pre-season tests in Portimão, so we still have Valencia and Portimão. We still have the testing to do and hopefully even more top speed. »
Does the engine still have Yamaha DNA, especially at low revs?
« Yes. The character changes a little but I'm not worried. Of course, we still have to work a little in the first part of the acceleration because the bike is a little more lazy than aggressive: This is what we worked on this morning, while this afternoon I think that we will try some aerodynamics, then we will concentrate on the settings.
»
Luca Marmorini is present: Were you able to speak with him?
« Not specifically with him, but as soon as I finish a run, we always have the headphones on and I can talk to everyone. So he pays a lot of attention. He's one of the first ones that I can see is completely motivated. In the group, the faces do not express “well, we did it!” » but faces that say “we want to progress further”. So it creates a very good atmosphere in the team and it was good to see everyone focused like that. »
Is it important to see him in the box?
« Yes. When I was younger, I was more like “why isn’t he here?” ", but ultimately I know that even though it's not really present at the races, I know it's working hard and it's good to see that the first stage of the engine is a good improvement, so hopefully they will manage to take one more step »
Can we say that you have confidence in Yamaha again after a difficult period?
« (Sigh) The thing that is difficult is going to Aragón with the 2022 bike (laughs). This will be the hardest thing. I never lost confidence in Yamaha but I had a lot of doubts, and that's why it took so long for me to renew. But before we had any developments, we tried the engine and I felt that they really wanted to make a major change, so as soon as I signed the contract the confidence was back because I felt that they wanted to make a change. It looks like they've done it now, and like I said before, the faces on the team are saying "OK, the progress is really good but we want more." And that makes me even more confident. »
Were you able to follow Marc Márquez?
« No ! I barely saw anyone today. Just Pecco with rain tires (laughs). He did not want to use his tires for the next GP, of which he did a few laps with wet tires. »
Combined results of the 4 half-days of the MotoGP test in Misano:
Credit Ranking: MotoGP.com
