The world title slips away from Fabio Quartararo’s hands. The Yamaha Frenchman is disappointed, but it is already time to look to the future.
Fabio Quartararo was betting everything on victory in Valencia, it was the only way to keep in sight the hope of defending the MotoGP title. But the plan didn’t work. First he found himself coming to terms with Jack Miller who put a bank on him, then with Pecco Bagnaia who hindered him in the first laps making him lose contact with the leading group. Eventually the advance from the rear and the overtaking of Brad Binder put an end to all hope.
Closing the GP of Valencia in fourth place, the Frenchman of Yamaha could not do more with this M1 lacking in power. TO Pecco Bagnaia a ninth place was enough to become world champion with a lead of 17 points after 20 races in the 2022 season. “I’m the first of the losers!“, He says ironically after the race. “I am a fighter, a winner. I want to be in first place… The first 15 minutes after the race were difficult“.
Quartararo restarts from Tuesday’s test
After the checkered flag he is the first to congratulate the new world champion. At the start of the race, the two fought shoulder to shoulder with a series of overtakes and counter-overtakes. In a contact Pecco Bagnaia lost one of his fins. Fabio Quartararo manages to get the better of it, but it proved impossible to keep up Alex Rins and Jorge Martin: “I was at the limit on the left side of the tire, I couldn’t do more“.
In some places he even risked crashing, like on the last lap. “Today I don’t regret anything because I gave my best. When you lose a stock like this you always have to see the positives, even if it’s 99% negative at the moment. The one percent positive is that in the next four months leading up to the first race I will train even harder and prepare even better to attack again in 2023“.
Tuesday already starts preseason 2023 with a day of Irta tests, it will be used to go towards the winter break with greater optimism and hope. “What happened, happened. It’s over. We need to close this chapter and start a new one. And this starts on Tuesday“. In Yamaha I have been working on a new engine specification for some time and finally the results were glimpsed during the Misano test in September. But that’s not enough: “We have three problems. One I think they have fixed and that is the engine. On the other two problems I will have to work a lot tomorrow and Tuesday“.
