Fabio Quartararo: I'm happy if Taka wins this race

With the top four in the MotoGP title chase starting Sunday's Teruel MotoGP from 4th (Maverick Vinales), 6th (Fabio Quartararo), 12th (Joan Mir) and 17th (Andrea Dovizioso), it's far from certain that - just as last weekend - any of the quartet will take home the full 25 points.

And that's fine with Quartararo, who says he'd be happy to see the likes of debut pole starter Takaaki Nakagami take victory, or a repeat win for Alex Rins, before heading to more favourable tracks.

Although starting on the second row, the Frenchman was only twelfth fastest for race pace in final practice.

"I’ve never found the feeling here in two weeks, so I need to do my best for this race and we know in Valencia I feel much better," he said.

"For this race I’m happy if Taka wins. Our main contenders are Joan, Maverick and Dovi," added Quartararo, who was followed out of the pits by Mir's Suzuki team-mate Rins at the end of Qualifying 2.

"It was just random. I saw he was behind me but in FP2 he didn’t roll off when I was behind him, so I decided not to roll off also in qualifying. He is not a real contender for the championship. If he can finish in front of Mir that is always better."

But Quartararo feels Nakagami (29 points from Mir, compared with 36 adrift for Rins) does have the potential to develop into a title contender, should he continue his Aragon speed at other circuits.

"Taka can also be a contender for championship," he said. "One that have not the best result, but the one with more consistency. He’s become faster and faster in every grand prix. We need to be really careful with him."

Quartararo, who dropped from pole to 18th with front tyre pressure problems last Sunday, feels a top five is a realistic goal.

"I can say I'm a little bit worried because I have not the real pace to fight for a great result tomorrow," Quartararo said. "My pace is better than last week, but the pace is much better for everybody.

"I think we are missing 0.2s to be able to fight for top 5 and I know where I need to improve.

"For me the main problem is the turning. Our bike in short corners, fast corners [is OK] but long corners, where we stay on the gas from 10% to 100% for a long time, like corner 10 and 17, we are losing 3 tenths just in two corners.

"The front pressure [problem] looks like it’s solved, so I am quite happy about that.

"It's not clear which tyre I’ll be using tomorrow. Looks like the soft is a better but for less laps. The medium is not so great in the beginning, but the consistency is a little bit better.

"So we have to be clever to see what we can improve tomorrow morning to see the potential of the bike and the tyres."

Quartararo starts Sunday's race just six points behind Mir.

Team-mate Franco Morbidelli qualified in second place, behind Nakagami, with Rins completing the front row.