Fabio Quartararo “surprised” with new Yamaha item at British MotoGP

A new Yamaha fairing was a “surprise” addition to Fabio Quartararo’s Yamaha M1 at the British MotoGP.

Yamaha and Quartararo tested at Misano between the French and British Grands Prix, with a new fairing on the itinerary for the test.

Quartararo said on Thursday that he was not expecting to have the wings he tested in Misano available at Silverstone, but the team gave him a “surprise” on Friday morning.

“The team told me we have a surprise, but it’s still not the full one,” the Monster Energy Yamaha rider said after Practice at the British Grand Prix.

“It’s a prototype, it’s not a carbon one. The weight is a bit heavier, but I felt it was an advantage and I wanted to use it.

“Also, Alex [Rins] didn’t really like it, so it was easy to [decide] who was going to have the aero.”

Quartararo added that the revised design helps with turning.

“Little bit better turning,” he said when asked how it helps.

“It’s not a massive difference, but my feeling was like that, and my feeling matched the data, so we decided to homologate this fairing.”

The French rider also had a new swingarm in the morning, but discarded it for the afternoon.

“Clearly only the morning because the new [swingarm] was not working at all and I went back to the standard one for the afternoon,” he said.

“So I was only using the standard one in the afternoon.”

In general, it had been a good Friday for Yamaha, who had three bikes in the top-10 in Practice.

Quartararo said that the bike is particularly strong over one lap, and that having two other Yamahas close to him in terms of lap time was positive.

“Especially on one lap it’s good,” Quartararo said.

“I think in the past when we started in 2022 to get a little bit lower in the pace we were a little bit weaker, but now it looks like we start to be back on the one-lap pace, and we are working a lot to do the race pace a bit better.

“Hopefully we can find a solution for the race pace, even if here it’s quite okay.”

He added: “I’m feeling happy to say that Jack [Miller] is there, and Alex, and Miguel [Oliveira] who is step-by-step coming back.

“Usually you never want your teammates to be close, normally you want the biggest gap possible, but to see them every time closer and closer and more to the top is something that I really like and something that we will have a lot of data to analyse.”

The reason for the recent upturn in one-lap speed – Quartararo comes to Silverstone having been on pole in the last two Grands Prix – is about consistency in the package.

“For me, it’s [one-lap speed improvements] the consistency that, since Qatar [...] we keep the same base and small modifications.

“Since Qatar we changed quite a lot the bike,” he clarified, “[but] only a few details and this was the difference, and has always been one of my strongest points to be on the limit for one lap.”

He continued: “The confidence is there and I think Jack, Alex, and Miguel are getting it also.”

Finally, Quartararo said that a first-ever 1:56 was possible on Saturday, though not necessarily from him.

“I think tomorrow, if the weather is good, we will [lap in] the 1:56s,” he said.

“Maybe not me, but I think the lap time will drop to 1:56.”