Top Yamaha chief assures Quartararo: “We’re following your recommendations”

A downbeat Quartararo will use 2021 settings - from the season when he became MotoGP champion - for the rest of this year, he claimed at Le Mans, after another difficult weekend.

Chassis, exhaust and aero parts trialled at the recent Jerez test have already been thrown to the side.

But Eric De Seynes, President of Yamaha Motor Europe, told BT Sport that Quartararo’s complaints have not gone unnoticed.

“We have been working hard, following the recommendation of Fabio for the past year,” he said.

“We have been investing, we have a new engine, we can see the top speed has been improving significantly.

“Now, we must protect our key advantages.

“We see that Red Bull, KTM, Ducati are working hard on aero. They could compensate on their lacking points.

“We do not have the same advantage that we had in the past. We are working hard on that.

“Our racing pace is not bad. Fabio overtook eight riders [in the sprint at Le Mans]. He took pleasure from the bike.

“We have one disadvantage - the bike is new, newer than it appears. We have now only two sessions, rather than three, for practice. Two sessions are super-fast, this is why we continue to struggle in qualifying.

“But in racing conditions we can be at the front so we just need to improve qualifying.”

Quartararo’s home race at the French MotoGP underlined his drab season so far.

He crashed in the sprint race, from eighth place, then finished seventh in the grand prix, benefitting from several crashes ahead of him.

Quartararo only failed to cling onto his MotoGP championship on the final day of 2022 but, now, he sits 45 points reigning champion Francesco Bagnaia who again leads the standings.