Who is Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo? Everything you need to know from net worth to career stats

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Fabio Quartararo is France’s only premier class motorcycle world champion after his MotoGP title with Yamaha in 2021, so here is everything you need to know about him.

After a very long wait, Quartararo finally handed France its first premier class champion during his first season with the factory Yamaha team.

Quartararo has to date only ever ridden on Yamaha bikes since making his MotoGP debut in 2019, as well, having graduated from Moto2 with Petronas Yamaha SRT whilst they served as the Japanese brand’s satellite squad.

But the demise of Yamaha amid the rise of the dominant Ducati machines in the years that followed saw Quartararo fall away from fighting at the front of the MotoGP field.

The Frenchman endured his worst campaign in the premier class to date in 2024, securing just 113 points on his way to a 13th-place finish in the standings.

How Fabio Quartararo became a MotoGP champion with Yamaha in 2021

After replacing the legendary Valentino Rossi at Yamaha’s factory team for 2021, the Frenchman wasted no time and won the MotoGP title during his first year with them.

It was a season where he managed five consecutive pole positions (something which hadn’t been achieved since Marc Marquez managed it in 2014) and trounced his opposition regularly.

Quartararo secured the title with two races to go when Ducati rival Francesco Bagnaia crashed out of the lead with five laps to go, ending the Italian’s hopes of a maiden MotoGP crown at the time.

After claiming victory five times in the opening 12 rounds, Quartararo finished the year by going six Grand Prix without reaching the top step of the podium.

His title bid also faced an additional challenge when Quartararo required mid-season arm pump surgery after the problem heightened during the Grand Prix of Spain and cost him a chance of victory at Jerez.

The Grand Prix of Spain would prove to be the only race that year where Quartararo failed to finish inside the top eight with P13 all the Yamaha star could manage.

His consistency throughout the season was often superb, with Quartararo claiming 13 top-five finishes through 20 rounds and only retiring once.

Winning the MotoGP title in 2021 also further put to bed the doubts which hung over Quartararo when Petronas SRT promoted him from Moto2 for the 2019 season.

Many pundits questioned Petronas SRT’s decision to pick Quartararo for their MotoGP team, having rarely shown he merited a graduation in the intermediate or lightweight classes.

Quartararo only won one Moto2 Grand Prix from 36, and the Frenchman secured his highest placement in the standings in 2018 with P10. Quartararo had also failed to win any of his 31 Moto3 Grands Prix, and took a personal best of P10 in the 2015 standings as a rookie.

Yet Quartararo made those who questioned his graduation eat their words soon after his MotoGP debut in the 2019 Grand Prix of Qatar. His maiden podium arrived in round seven with P2 in the Grand Prix of Catalunya en route to fifth place in the 2019 MotoGP standings.

Quartararo then started his second season in MotoGP with back-to-back wins on a satellite Yamaha bike for Petronas SRT at the Grand Prix of Spain and Andalusia, both of which were held at Jerez.

Why has Fabio Quartararo struggled so much since 2021?

At least on paper, Quartararo has been on a progressive downward slope since winning his first MotoGP title in 2021 having achieved worse results year on year.

The Frenchman’s 2022 title defence saw Bagnaia overturn the largest points deficit in MotoGP history as the Ducati rider recovered from being 91 points behind to claim the championship by 17 points.

It marked just how poor Yamaha had been in the second half of that season and the Japanese brand is yet to revert that form by giving Quartararo a more competitive bike.

In 2024, Quartararo achieved no podiums at all for the first time in his career. However, he felt as if his team began to make some small steps in the right direction despite Yamaha dropping from 196 points in 2023 to 124.

Yamaha developing a V4 engine to match their rivals’ more powerful bikes, having been the only team running inline-four-cylinder engines since Suzuki withdrew after 2022, would see Quartararo show his faith in the project by signing a new contract through 2026.

Straight-line speed has often been a major issue for Yamaha, whose inline-four engine lacked ultimate pace but improved the bike’s cornering ability. But the modifications the team made have helped to get Quartararo closer to the top places again.

So, with that in mind, MotoGP News takes a look at everything you need to know about Quartararo and the Yamaha rider’s life away from the premier class…

Who is Fabio Quartararo?

Fabio Quartararo is a French motorcycle racer and a world champion who competes in MotoGP with the factory Yamaha team. He is also a one-time premier class champion after Quartararo won the MotoGP title with Yamaha in 2021.

Quartararo has ridden bikes since the age of four and is also the son of the 1983 French 125cc champion, Etienne Quartararo, who also competed in the French 250cc class and for the Bol d’Or. His mother, Martine Quartararo, is a hairdresser.

How old is Fabio Quartararo? Where was he born and what is his nationality?

At the time of writing, Quartararo is 27 years old and was born on 20 April, 1999.

Quartararo was born in Nice, which is a city in the south of France, near the principality of Monaco. Nice is the second-largest French city on the Mediterranean coast with a population of nearly one million.

How tall is Fabio Quartararo and how much does he weigh?

Quartararo is one of the taller riders on the MotoGP grid at 1.77m, or 5 ft 8 in feet and inches.

How good is Fabio Quartararo? What‘s been said about him?

Back in 2022, British MotoGP hero Cal Crutchlow commended Quartararo for his skillset and claimed that nobody on the grid could match the Yamaha rider.

“I know what he’s riding, and he is the best rider on the grid at the minute because I don’t believe anybody else in that grid can do what he’s doing with that bike,” official Yamaha MotoGP test rider Crutchlow said.

“That’s the simple fact. So, take nothing away from Pecco, because he rode a fantastic championship, he did a great job, so did Ducati. And he’s a great rider.”

Quartararo has frequently shown since graduating to MotoGP that he boasts exceptional race craft. But he has also shown excellence off the bike after Quartararo got Yamaha to grow their team around him.

What is Fabio Quartararo’s race number?

Quartararo chose 20 as his permanent race number upon graduating to MotoGP in 2019 and intends to stick with it throughout his premier class career. The Frenchman says the number helped start his desire to race motorbikes, so wants to retain it.

“We will not see this number because I started with the number 20 and I feel like I’m not number one,” Quartararo said about adopting the No1 plate as the MotoGP champion for 2022. “So, I will keep going with the number 20 until the end of my career because it’s the number that really made me want to start when I was four and it’s a really special number.”

The only time that Quartararo has not raced with the number 20 plate in his world championship career, which started in Moto3 in 2015, was for the 2017 Moto2 season when the Frenchman switched to No40 and Joe Roberts took No20.

Why is Fabio Quartararo’s nickname El Diablo?

Quartararo has adopted the nickname El Diablo since his days competing in the Spanish junior championships. He first adopted the nickname after wearing a tribute helmet for Roberto Locatelli which featured a sticker of a devil on it.

His rival riders also gave Quartararo the nickname El Diablo after he secured back-to-back titles in the Spanish 80cc and Pre-Moto3 series. The Spanish junior championships marked the start of Quartararo’s road to MotoGP after moving from France to Spain in his youth.

Quartararo was a dominant force in the Spanish junior championships, winning the Spanish Moto3 title as a rookie in 2013 and defending it in 2014 with nine wins from 11 races. He also became the youngest rider to win the Spanish Moto3 title at 14 years and 217 days.

Fabio Quartararo’s net worth

Signing his latest contract with Yamaha in April 2024 made Quartararo the highest-paid rider in MotoGP with an annual salary of £10m. The wage increase will also increase Quartararo’s net worth, which is believed to be £4m.

Fabio Quartararo’s MotoGP career stats

As of the end of the 2025 MotoGP season, Quartararo has won one premier class title and is a multiple-time Grand Prix winner. He made his MotoGP debut in the 2015 Grand Prix of Qatar, where Quartararo finished in P7 for Petronas SRT.