Fabio Quartararo reveals MotoGP season he enjoyed more than his title year
Fabio Quartararo explains why 2019 was more enjoyable than his 2021 MotoGP title-winning year.
After seven years, 11 wins, 32 podiums and a MotoGP title, Fabio Quartararo rode his final race on the Inline Yamaha M1 at Valencia.
Quartararo, like the other Yamaha riders, will switch to the factory’s new V4 prototype for 2026.
But while Monster team-mate Alex Rins and Pramac’s Jack Miller have raced, and won, for other MotoGP manufacturers, Quartararo’s entire premier-class career has been spent on the M1.
Quartararo’s big MotoGP break came when Dani Pedrosa chose retirement rather than the new satellite Yamaha Petronas SRT seat for 2019, opening the door for the Frenchman to join Franco Morbidelli.
When Quartararo first arrived in the Moto3 World Championship in 2015, at the Emilio Alzamora-run Estrella-Galicia team, he had been tipped as the next Marc Marquez. Instead, his career ran off course.
After four different teams in four seasons, Quartararo had taken only a single Moto2 win (and been disqualified from another). But Razlan Razali believed in Quartararo’s raw talent, and the teenager turned heads from winter testing on the ‘satellite spec’ machine.
"The year that I enjoyed the most"
Reflecting on his M1 career at Valencia, Quartararo picked out his first major MotoGP achievement - pole position at Jerez - adding that his rookie 2019 campaign was more enjoyable than winning the world title, at the factory team, in 2021.
“I would say my pole position in Jerez in 2019… I enjoyed [that year] even better than my world championship year,” Quartararo said.
“Because if you crash, it doesn't matter, you are learning. If you finish in the top ten, you can do better next time. If you finish in the top five, it's amazing. If you finish on the podium, it's amazing.
“It doesn't matter the result, you always find something. It was the year where the pressure was completely zero and the year that I enjoyed the most.”
Quartararo explained that success inevitably changes expectations.
“You don't really feel more the pressure, but in the 2021 [title] season, you finish fourth and you are disappointed, it's a bad result.
“But in your first year you never know what to expect from the first race, from the next race. And this was the positive.
“You went there just to give your best and if your best was 2nd, it was amazing. If it was P5, it was amazing. P10, you have something to learn. If you crash, it’s all experience. This is the difference.”
Quartararo finished the 2019 season with seven podiums, five of them runner-up finishes, and fifth in the world championship. He then took the first satellite-team M1 victories at the start of 2020, before his title challenge evaporated.
Signed to take over Valentino Rossi’s factory seat for 2021, Quartararo immediately claimed Yamaha's first title since Jorge Lorenzo in 2015.
However the European manufacturers, led by Ducati, were growing ever stronger in the new aerodynamic and ride-height device era, with the Quartararo/Yamaha wins drying up mid-way through 2022.
But Quartararo came agonisingly close to giving the Inline concept a final victory at Silverstone this season, only to retire from a comfortable lead when his ride-height device failed.
As such, the last Inline win remains team-mate Alex Rins’ 2022 Valencia triumph, for Suzuki.
Next year’s V4 Yamaha means the 2026 grid will be the first without an Inline-powered MotoGP machine since the four-stroke era began in 2002.
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Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
