The two best-placed French drivers in practice for the Qatar Grand Prix suffered disappointments in the race.
If, for Johann Zarco, it happened a few fractions of a second even before the red lights went out, things seem more mysterious concerning Fabio Quartararo.
Qualified on the front row after the penalty inflicted on Brad Binder, the Leopard driver widened slightly at the first corner which benefited the South African driver, as well as Enea Bastianini and Jorge Navarro, to pass. Then the leading group gradually broke away and the French driver was not able to keep up the pace, having to concede positions in the second part of the race to Nicolo Bulega, Phillip Oettl, Jakub Kornfeil, Jules Danilo and his own teammate, Joan Mir, to finish in a very frustrating 13th place.
After his brilliant start to the weekend, it's knocking open doors to write that the Leopard driver was visibly suffering from a problem but it's an arduous task to try to find out which one.
His press release is indeed very laconic: “cela a été une course très compliquée. Je ne m’attendais à une telle conclusion donc nous devrons travailler plus dur lors de la prochaine manche. J’oublie cette course et tourne mon regard vers l’Argentine.”
Reading between the lines of this very professional statement (Fabio Quartararo quickly understood the rules of the trade and will never say bad things about anything), we see that the problem perhaps came from the development of his motorbike.
This hypothesis seems in any case confirmed by several people present on site, who saw #20 make big gestures directly after the race, seeming to incriminate his front end.
Quoi qu’il en soit, “ce n’est que partie remise”, comme on dit
dans ces cas-là.
The French driver is undoubtedly looking forward to Argentina…
