More “strange” problems led to Fabio Quartararo’s crash out of Aragon MotoGP
Fabio Quartararo crashed out of top 10 in Aragon MotoGP
Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo says he battled more chatter issues in the MotoGP Aragon Grand Prix, which caused him to crash while running in 10th.
After three rounds where he was on pole and fought for the podium in two of them, the 2021 world champion struggled throughout the Aragon weekend.
Rear chatter issues dropped him out of the points in Saturday’s sprint, with those problems reappearing in Sunday’s 23-lap grand prix.
Fabio Quartararo crashed out of 10th at Turn 1 on the 13th lap, and said the chatter on the rear meant “I could not ride”.
Troublingly, this wasn’t an issue he expected to have on the medium rear tyre he raced with, leading to some head-scratching at Yamaha.
“Same as yesterday. Chatter on the rear. Locking on the front, no grip,” he explained.
“The grip was improving lap by lap, but just the chatter was really, really bad and I could not ride. And pushing a little bit more we just lost the front.
“It’s quite strange, because if we do short runs, of four laps it’s quite ok.
“But after five, six laps the bike started to have a lot of chatter, step by step more and more.
“It’s [coming] from something else we don’t really know why.
“With the soft it happens sometimes and with the medium we never expect to have it during the race, and today it happened.
“So, it’s really strange. It never really happens two times in a row. We have to understand why. It’s a really strange situation.”
Yamaha potential “really bad” at big season test
Quartararo believes Yamaha can put the Aragon weekend behind it, but also notes that it was a place to truly see where the 2025 M1 is in the MotoGP pecking order.
Though he reckons the coming races will be better for Yamaha, he admits the current package’s potential was “really bad at Aragon and much more work is needed.
“This one for me was a little bit a point where we could really see our potential and see where we are,” he said.
“Some tracks we are better, some tracks we are worse, but this one was one of the tracks where really it was important to see our potential and it was really bad.
“So, I think we have to improve a lot. Still a long way to go, but I think Mugello and Assen are tracks where we can be much faster.”
After Quartararo’s crash, the best Yamaha at the chequered flag was Alex Rins in 11th.
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.
