Fabio Quartararo opens up about his improved performance during Catalan Grand Prix

Fabio Quartararo commented on his performance in the Catalan Grand Prix, moving from 17th to ninth place, marking his second top-10 finish of the season. Racing with a new aero package in Barcelona, Yamaha has been testing various upgrades between races to improve its M1 challenger. 

The 2021 champion has previously criticized Yamaha for its lack of meaningful developments in recent years, causing a decline in performance. However, Fabio Quartararo now seen progress in recent months, giving him hope that Yamaha can close the gap with the leading teams and improve its competitiveness.

He said, "When you are doing the small steps, you want to have a bigger one as soon as possible. But to be honest, this one and a half years, we have been without making any progress and to feel that we are seeing the light coming out of the tunnel, it's great. So hopefully we can make some good steps pretty soon."

'It helps to turn', Quartararo opens up about recent bike upgrades 

When questioned about the impact of the Barcelona updates on his performance, he responded, "The updates assist in better cornering and slightly increased speed. It's hard to determine if it's a significant improvement because aerodynamics isn’t immediately noticeable."

“This aero, you have to get used [to it] and in the future, it will be a really good step, and we are looking to make another step like this one. So hopefully we can do it. For me [with] the aerodynamics you get used much more when you make more laps,” he further added.

“I learn [about] the aerodynamics even more during the [whole] weekend that I use because I can understand where the strong points of this aero are, and in five laps you cannot understand [that]. This is the benefit of having the concessions.”

“After Mugello, we go to Valencia [for] two days of test. It's really busy but it's worth it because Yamaha has never worked like that in the past, and has never had that much idea. And we are not bringing things to bring.” 

“We spoke with the team that I don't want to test another chassis or another swingarm. We tested 100s of them already. We know where the problem is coming from, so now they are focused on that and they are working cleverly”, he concluded.