“Quartararo is fed up with Yamaha - he would’ve come to Suzuki willingly!”
2021 world champion Quartararo saw his title defence crumble - he allowed a 91-point lead over Francesco Bagnaia to slip (an all-time record comeback) largely due to the performance of his bike.
Suppo, the team manager of Suzuki who will exit MotoGP before 2023, believes he could have tempted Quartararo across.
“It seems to me that [Quartararo and Marc Marquez] are quite fed up with their situation, to the point that Quartararo would have come to us very willingly,” Suppo said to MOW Mag.
“And it would have been fun to see him on a Suzuki."
Suzuki left MotoGP on a high - with Alex Rins winning two of the final three races, including the Valencia finale.
Rins and 2020 world champion Joan Mir will both feature in the MotoGP 2023 rider line-up for Honda, a team who endured a miserable season to forget.
Suppo is wary that the Japanese manufacturers, Yamaha and Honda, will enter 2023 with a sizable disadvantage against Ducati.
“Fabio and Marc Marquez are two of the strongest riders, but on paper they will have to fight with their bike and this is a bit of a shame for the world championship,” he said.
“As for Fabio, I wouldn't want him to get to the point of stopping believing, he has been putting a [plaster] on it for many years: if the bike continues to suffer so much in top speed the chain could come down.
“Instead I think Marc has lost a bit of confidence in Honda, at least from the statements he makes and the fact that he stopped testing very early in Valencia.
“It seems that they don't believe in it so much anymore, so it's really difficult to understand who will be more competitive with each other. It will depend a lot on how much the respective racing departments will be able to improve the bike.
“We hope that this winter both Honda and Yamaha will be able, for the sake of the championship, to fix the bike.”
Suppo worked at Ducati in 2007 when Casey Stoner won the championship. The Italian team took 15 long years to crown another champion, until Bagnaia this season.
Bagnaia will have Enea Bastianini as his teammate next year - a potentially explosive duo who will both eye the title for themselves.
“They are two young, strong Italian riders, they both ride a Ducati, it's normal that there will be a big rivalry, but I think both are balanced and able to handle this pressure,” Suppo said.
“The sparks on the track were made again this year, even if one bike was red and the other was not. But they never did anything excessive.
“I imagine that they will continue along these lines and that they will be inconvenient customers for everyone else.
“This year they made a first and a third place in the world championship while Quartararo, who finished second, after the last tests in Valencia did not seem particularly happy with the development made, a bit like Marquez.”
