Fabio Quartararo’s first V4 Yamaha praise, but ‘not hopeful yet’ after MotoGP test

Fabio Quartararo says he likes “the way of riding” the Yamaha V4 MotoGP bike, but says it’s too early to be hopeful in the project after the Valencia test.

The Japanese manufacturer announced last weekend that it would be officially retiring its inline-four MotoGP bike in favour of the V4 project it has been developing for the past year.

Tuesday’s Valencia test offered its race riders another opportunity to try the V4, with Fabio Quartararo leading the way on a 1m29.927s in 15th spot.

Quartararo was less than impressed with the V4 when he first tested it at Misano in September.

And while he is being cautious in his feedback on the bike after Tuesday’s Valencia test, he did offer a small bit of praise for the bike.

“It’s too early to say whether I’m happy or not,” he said.

“We didn’t make many laps. We, for me, spent a lot of time changing many things on the setting because we clearly miss our strongest point, which is the front feeling.

“So, this is why we spent a lot of time in the garage.

“We tried to change many things. Luckily, tomorrow we have one more day. Hopefully it’s not raining, but it’s going to be an important day.”

Yamaha will remain in Valencia for a day of private testing on Wednesday.

He added: “Like I said, today was a really short day.

“We didn’t have time to really… it was all in a rush, just trying to make the bike work.

“So, like I said, tomorrow is going to be important, especially to find the way with chassis, electronics, engine, and aerodynamics.

“So, today was just a day to be back a bit with the bike, trying to understand a bit more, because the riding style is different compared to the four-inline.

“But, I like the way of riding on the V4.”

Quartararo’s time on the V4 was slightly faster than his inline-four best of a 1m30.020s.

However, when asked if this gave him some hope that the V4 project was now starting from a similar level as the old bike, he said no because he didn’t push the inline-four to its limit on Tuesday.

“No, not yet, because this morning was just I did two laps with the standard bike, with the medium tyre, with quite a lot of fuel.

“This afternoon was soft/soft tyres, trying to find the limit.

“And it was half a tenth better. So, it’s too early. We need to work hard and give the best direction to the engineers to feel what they can do.”