“No deadline” but Fabio Quartararo will “listen to everyone” for 2025 MotoGP contract

Yamaha will have been relieved to hear star rider Fabio Quartararo say he has no fixed deadline in mind for deciding his 2025 MotoGP future.

But the Frenchman also indicated he will be open to offers from rival manufacturers; “we have to listen to everyone.”

Yamaha suffered its first winless season since 2003 last year, with former world champion Quartararo also sinking to a new personal low of tenth in the standings.

Earlier this week, ex-title rival and reigning double champion Francesco Bagnaia became the first rider of the year to officially put pen to paper for 2025, in the form of a new two-year Ducati deal.

However, Quartararo is prepared to wait and see the outcome of the latest ‘phase’ of Yamaha’s MotoGP restructuring, centred around the signing of key ex-Ducati engineers Marco Nicotra and Max Bartolini.

“No, there is no deadline. No proper talks yet with Yamaha,” Quartararo said on the eve of the Qatar season opener.

“So I think I will need a little bit of time to see also the project, the mentality of the team, how it's going with these new engineers.

“At the moment, I can say that they are making steps… But I think we have to listen to everyone.”

Quartararo heads into his sixth MotoGP season, all spent on Yamaha machinery, confident that new access to technical concessions will also accelerate the M1’s recovery.

“I think it's really important, especially to have many things that we can change on the bike,” he said. “To be able to test more during the season will be great… also because we have only have two bikes.”

While engine performance has taken a step forward over the winter, qualifying speed remains a concern and testing closed with the Yamahas of Quartararo and new team-mate Alex Rins still facing a clear gap to the leading machines from Ducati, Aprilia and KTM.

“The bigger change we had during the winter was the top speed. And we are pretty happy with that,” said Quartararo.

“Maybe over one lap it will not make the difference, but to fight in a race, I think it could be much easier to prepare an overtake or be closer to the guy in front. “And I think we can ride more in a similar way to the other manufacturers.”

However, “there are many areas where we have to improve. Also last year, the pace was always much better than on a [flying] lap and we know how important it is to be in Q2 from Friday afternoon.

“There are some areas like electronics, the way we are using the rear tyre going into the corner is something that we are a little bit worse every year.

“So we have to get a little bit back like in ‘19 or ’21, when the way we were riding was much more smooth. I think we need much more time to understand completely what we need.”

As such, Quartararo concedes it’s difficult to know when the M1 will be ready to win again.

“Well, hopefully as soon as possible,” Quartararo said. “But it's difficult to predict when the bike is going to be ready.

“Last year I was not able to be better than third. So hopefully we can fight this year for the victory in the occasion where we feel we can.

“But I think that we have to do it step by step and not thinking already about the win but try to be into the top five. And then stepping up.”

Quartararo finished seventh in last November's Qatar race and was 14th on the recent testing timesheets.