‘For personal reasons’ - Fabio Quartararo won’t help with Yamaha development anymore

Tensions between Fabio Quartararo and Yamaha appear to have worsened over the Aragon MotoGP weekend, as he says “I don’t want to help” with bike development now.

Ahead of the current season getting underway, reports emerged that 2021 world champion Fabio Quartararo had signed for Honda for the 2027 campaign.

Yamaha’s new V4 bike has not delivered a major step forward for the brand, with Quartararo’s best result a fifth-place at Barcelona having been able to fight for podiums last season.

Quartararo has made no secret of his unhappiness at the situation he currently finds himself in.

However, he grew more frustrated over the Aragon weekend, noting on Sunday that he will “stop trying 100 things” during a grand prix for Yamaha.

On Saturday at Aragon, he told French media: “For the future, I am not in a position to help. And for personal reasons, I don’t want to help.”

Yamaha test refusal has led to Quartararo’s hardline stance

As reported by the French-language version of Motorsport, Quartararo said on Sunday that he has been refused permission to test Pirelli tyres with Yamaha on the Monday after the Austrian Grand Prix.

As part of preparations for 2027, a test at Brno and a test in Austria after the race were pencilled in to allow riders to sample Pirelli tyres.

However, due to so many riders changing brands at the end of the season, few current competitors actually tested on Pirellis at Brno.

Pecco Bagnaia already complained about this earlier in the season ahead of the Brno test, though Crash understands more bikes may be on track for the Austria test.

If that does happen, Quartararo says he has already been told by Yamaha that he will not be allowed to take part.

As a result, he says he has no desire to help Yamaha develop its current bike with a view to the 2027 season.

“To set the record straight, here's the thing... I don't know if I should say this, but I'm going to say it anyway: I wanted to do the tests in Austria,” he told French media at Aragon.

“But unfortunately, Yamaha doesn't want me to ride on Pirelli tyres. I wanted to do something, but they won't let me.”

“Personally, I don't want to develop the bike for the 2027 riders.

“So, if we can improve something for this year, I'll do it.

“But I'm not going to push myself to the limit and act as a test rider like I did this weekend.”

An unnecessary setback for Yamaha?

Quartararo told Crash at Silverstone that “in the Valencia test last year I felt I needed something new. And we decided there to step away from Yamaha. Then, to exactly which team I was going, I didn’t know yet. But I knew I wanted to move from teams and I think it was the correct moment.”

Given Yamaha had no chance to re-sign the Frenchman, it’s not surprising that it is unwilling to allow him an early advantage by sampling Pirelli tyres before he moves to Honda.

However, Yamaha may also be shooting itself in the foot with this decision. At Brno, KTM elected to put Pedro Acosta on its 850cc prototype for the Pirelli test at Brno in June. KTM boss Pit Beirer was frank in his justification for this, telling Speedweek: “For us, it’s quite simple: Pedro is the fastest and the best KTM rider we’ve ever had and currently have. So, we want to have the benchmark data from our best rider.”

Quartararo remains Yamaha’s leading rider in the standings, despite a pair of last-place finishes at Silverstone and Aragon, and has been outperforming the potential of the bike for the last few years.

Commenting on the progress Yamaha has made with its V4, he told Crash at Silverstone: “I expected it to be much better than now, especially looking at how we made the first test in Barcelona… actually, it was not a great, great test, we were slower than the four inline, but the track conditions were not so good.

“We saw that my lap time was not so bad considering it was the first time the bike was on track with me. And I was pretty quick. But the problem was that September, October, November, we didn’t make steps, and actually we have a really, really similar package to the first bike we ever rode.

“When you start a new project, normally the first steps are big, and then it becomes tricky to find the last tenth. But we never really made the big step from the new bike to a bike that is almost one year [old]. So, this is why I think we are really in a difficult situation.”

With Yamaha’s V4 progress clearly lagging, it could use all the help it can get in developing its 2027 package. But this fallout could well unnecessarily impact the brand’s progress heading into next season.