Marco Bezzecchi
Fabio Quartararo suffered some very mixed fortunes at the Grand Prix of Americas as Yamaha showed signs of getting back to form.
Saturday’s sprint race yielded the best result of the MotoGP season so far, as the 2021 champion came home in a valuable sixth place.
Sunday’s Grand Prix of the Americas seemed disastrous from before the race started when he fell off his bike during the second of his sighting laps.
Quartararo went on to finish a lonely 10th, but there should have been more on the table for Yamaha on the evidence of the sprint.
After qualifying, Quartararo admitted multiple areas of Yamaha ‘concern’ and has been making a list of the things that must be improved on their bike.
When things began to get tough in 2023, Quartararo admitted he was ‘overly aggressive’ with Yamaha. He has since changed his approach with the team.
READ MORE: Neil Hodgson accuses MotoGP team of forcing star into ‘overriding’ at the Americas Grand Prix
Fabio Quartararo and Yamaha impacted by ‘small things’ at the Grand Prix of Americas
Although it wasn’t what they would have hoped to achieve, Sunday’s race marked the first top 10 of the season and helped lift Quartararo higher in the riders’ standings.
He now sits 14th, level on points with two of his rivals for 12th heading into the European part of the season.
The upcoming race in Qatar is the last non-European race until the Japanese Grand Prix in the last quarter of the campaign.
It means that crunch time is arriving and the early teething problems must be rectified soon. Quartararo mentioned to the Italian edition of Motorsport.com in Austin that he was still plagued by multiple issues in Texas.
“So many small things happened, which made the race go pretty bad,” he said. “But it can happen, I keep the advantage of being pretty fast this weekend.”
Yamaha face problem ‘never seen before’ during the 2025 MotoGP campaign
After a promising start to pre-season testing in Sepang, things soon went downhill again for Yamaha in Buriram at the second test.
Their lap times were slower all of a sudden and they appeared to be plagued by a new issue on their bike with all riders.
Yamaha face a tyre wear problem ‘never seen before’ and it’s killing their race pace. It’s part of the reason why they seem so quick over one lap and then drop off.
Fortunately, the concession system means that they should be able to play catch-up and continue to upgrade their bike throughout the next two seasons.
The hope will be that they can carry some positive momentum into the new regulations which come into effect from the start of 2027.
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