Yamaha ‘further behind than we hoped’ as Quartararo, Rins struggle
Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins only 17th and 18th fastest on Friday practice at COTA.
Monster Yamaha riders Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins were left 17th and 18th in Friday practice for the Americas MotoGP at COTA, sending them both into Saturday’s Qualifying 1 session.
The pair were separated by just 0.036s but 1.4s behind fastest man Jorge Martin (Pramac Ducati) and half-a-second from the final top ten place for direct Q2 access.
“It was more difficult than we expected,” confessed Quartararo, who was riding for the first time since his new Yamaha contract was announced.
“We tried many things to try to find more turning compared to this morning, but we didn't really find it. We expected the times to be a little bit better and not this far from the top. But let's see tomorrow.
“Hopefully we can find small things to improve the feeling. The top speed is a positive point.
“We were able to play a little bit more with the power today, especially in slow corners. We have a little bit more aero, but we need to improve the turning.
“I feel like we soon will make the step that we want.”
Defending COTA winner Rins was riding the M1 for the first time in Texas.
“We are working quite hard. We started FP1 and it was bit difficult to find the best way to be fast. I'm struggling on the change of direction,” he explained. “This is not new, but this time I also found it quite difficult to stop the bike on hard braking. But we are working to find a solution, for sure.
“Let's see. Today was a good day in terms of laps and in terms of trying different things on the bike. So, right now we need to analyse, and we need to select the best package for the qualy and the Sprint tomorrow.”
Team director Massimo Meregalli admitted the Yamaha riders were further behind than hoped.
“We are further behind here at COTA than we had hoped. Our goal was, as always, to be inside the top 10 to have the best chances for qualifying tomorrow, but we are about a second off the mark where we want to be,” Meregalli said.
“Consequently, both Fabio and Álex have to take part in Q1 tomorrow. We need to work hard to find a time improvement and get ready for qualifying and the Sprint.”
Both Quartararo and Rins went directly through to Qualifying 2 at the previous Portimao round, while the Frenchman finished on the podium with third place at COTA last year.
But Yamaha wasn’t the only manufacturer to struggle on day one.
Both factory KTMs and all four Hondas also missed the top ten cut, creating a hotly contested Qualifying 1 line-up, where only the top two riders will progress to the pole position shootout.
