25/04/2026

“You don’t want to try your best”

Fabio Quartararo has admitted Yamaha’s persistent lack of competitiveness is making it difficult for him to perform at his best in MotoGP this season.

MotoGP’s return to action at the Spanish Grand Prix after an unexpected four-week break did little to lift the mood within the Yamaha camp, with Practice at Jerez underlining the scale of the challenge the Iwata-based brand faces to return to the front.

As was the case during the opening trio of races, Yamaha ended up firmly at the bottom of the timesheets on Friday, with Quartararo finishing a distant 17th on the best of the V4-powered M1s.

The Frenchman finished just over a second off the pace set by Alex Marquez on the Gresini Ducati, but more concerning was the gap to his own performance at the same circuit last year.

In particular, Quartararo’s best time of 1m36.752s was 1.1s down on the lap that earned him a shock pole last year. Even compared to Friday practice last year, he remained three tenths off his previous pace on the inline-four M1.

With Yamaha facing a long road to recovery, the 2021 champion suggested that he is now beginning to feel resigned to the situation.

“How it looks is how it is,” he admitted. “I mean, 1.1s from our best lap time in Jerez is really, really far.

“But I think we are starting to get a bit used [to it]. Every time when you come to a circuit, you have — I will not say expectation — but you just don’t want to try your best.

“Unfortunately, we are far.”

Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Quartararo denied suggestions that the conditions in Practice were worse than last year, with Alex Marquez’s benchmark of 1m35.704s almost three tenths up on the same session from 2025.

«I think it’s better. Last year, it was really, really hot. Now the temperature is quite good.

“We see Alex Marquez did 35.7 and all the others 36.0. So, if we check the practice from last year to this year, this year was much faster. The conditions were good.”

Quartararo reiterated that Yamaha has made little progress with the current-gen M1 since he tested the bike for the first time at last year’s Mugello test, stressing that the issues go beyond a lack of outright power.

“Here, the top speed should be the biggest issue because of the shorter track. Of course, we need a lot of top speed because we miss it. But for me, on this kind of track, it’s the last of our problems.

“I’m not really asking to work on power. Of course, I want the power, but we need a bike that turns, that stops, that has a feeling on the front, that has grip. This is the thing that I’ve been asking since September, but we are not finding anything.”