Fabio Quartararo: “This what I'm looking at…” ahead of Catalunya MotoGP

Fabio Quartararo says being able to push closer to the limit of his Yamaha V4 was key to achieving the bike’s best-yet MotoGP weekend at Le Mans.

After reverting to last year's front wing, Quartararo qualified sixth in front of his home fans, before finishing fifth in the Sprint and sixth in the grand prix.

That smashed the V4’s previous best grand prix result of 14th, and Quartararo is now eager to see if the enhanced ‘feeling’ continues at this weekend’s Catalunya round.

“In Jerez, I was really far from my best lap time of 2025. [At Le Mans] I was only four tenths behind. It was still four tenths, but we can be happy that I can feel more the limit of the bike,” Quartararo said.

The 2021 world champion emphasised that the progress had come from better front feeling, rather than any performance parts.

“We always try to find performance with the setting but I think once we have made five laps, we know where our base is," he explained.

"So until we have new items, we will not change the bike now…. When the team brings some items, we will test them and see if we have some more performance.

“We have worked a lot on the electronics this year, for me to take more control and less the electronics. So this was good, but we can see that Pecco in the first laps just overtook me in Turn 1 like nothing.

“Then of course we still have to [find] some power, especially from third to sixth, some more grip... plus, plus, plus.”

"This is more what I'm looking at"

Nonetheless, the stopwatch put Quartararo almost twenty seconds closer to the race winner than he’d been in the previous Jerez race.

“For me, the position is a number, but in Jerez after 26 laps we finished 29 seconds from Alex [Marquez]. [At Le Mans] we finished 7 seconds from Jorge [Martin]," said Quartararo.

“So this is more what I'm looking at. More than lap time, how close we are. And I think it was positive.”

Quartararo - understood to be joining Honda for the new 850cc era in 2027 - took his debut grand prix victory at Barcelona in Moto2, then stood on the top step of the MotoGP podium in 2020 and 2022.

Last year, he finished second in the Sprint and fifth in the grand prix on the former Inline-powered machine.

"I was really pleased with how I was feeling on the bike during the Le Mans Saturday and Sunday, and the results were pretty good,” Quartararo said ahead of Catalunya.

“Montmelo is a track I like, and this weekend will be a good test to understand if the setting that we found at the Jerez Test also works well here.

“I'm focused and motivated, as always, so I'll be pushing to get the best possible results again."

Le Mans also saw flashes of promise for team-mate Alex Rins, who qualified directly into Qualifying 2 before finishing 13th in the Sprint and then a season-best 12th in the grand prix, albeit 25-seconds behind Quartararo.

"I always enjoy the round in Catalonia,” Rins said.

“We have the opportunity to really work on the bike's set-up in Montmeló as we also have the test after the race weekend, so this will allow us to dive a bit deeper into the data and try more options.

“The goal for the race weekend is to find the feeling again that I had on the French GP Friday and then let's see what we can do."