Fabio Quartararo and Maverick Vinales discuss race tactics

Fabio Quartararo and Maverick Vinales will start the first Grand Prix of the 2021 MotoGP season from the front row after finishing second and third in qualifying.
Fabio Quartararo, Maverick Vinales, MotoGP, Qatar MotoGP 27 March 2021
Fabio Quartararo, Maverick Vinales, MotoGP, Qatar MotoGP 27 March 2021
© Gold and Goose

If qualifying wasn't enough of an appetizer, one of the key storylines during tomorrow’s race will be the battle between Yamaha and Ducati. 

With Francesco Bagnaia on pole and fellow Ducati riders Jack Miller and Johann Zarco on the second row, the safe bet is that one or more Ducati’s will be leading by the first corner. 

And with the top seven bikes on the grid all consisting of Yamaha and Ducati riders, the race strategy is going to be key. 

The question of how to approach the beginning of the race brought interesting and different answers from Fabio Quartararo and Maverick Vinales during the post qualifying press conference. 

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"My goal is to make a great start and great first laps and to be aggressive from the beginning," said Quartararo.

"I have been doing some overtakes in the test that I think are quite good. I think the first five laps will be so important and then we will see. 

"I hope from P2 I will not be low in the position, but for me, from the first lap to lap five or six it will get more normal. 

"The first laps are always so aggressive, but I think in the first laps we need to be the guys who are aggressive and make positions." 

Vinales had a more methodical approach when asked how he would tackle the difficulties of the opening laps and overtaking spots. 

The 26 year-old said: "Here the race is very long, a strategy you can think of in two ways. 

"You can either push in the last ten laps or in the first ones. The last ten laps have always been very critical for the tyre, so we need to be very smart on how we do the race.

"We only have two or three areas to overtake and we need grip. So we need to overtake but without burning rubber, so we need to be smart."

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