Faced with a daunting task of having to win the Valencia MotoGP race to become 2022 champion – but knowing it would still not likely be enough – Fabio Quartararo appears unshackled by the straightforward nature of his situation.
But he is also “feeling confident” about being able to hold up his end of the bargain.
Quartararo needs to win at Valencia and have rival Pecco Bagnaia score fewer than two points to successfully defend his crown.
He qualified fourth on Saturday, with Bagnaia eighth and needing to drop at least seven positions in the race for Quartararo to stand a chance.
Yet, coming into the weekend, Quartararo seemed to relish his underdog status – and this hasn’t changed even as his victory chances grew to look more plausible, with his long-run pace “one of the fastest” – if not the fastest – in practice.
Speaking to media after qualifying fourth, Quartararo said he’d been “much more nervous” and in a worse position mentally last year at Misano ahead of the race in which a Bagnaia crash would hand him the crown with a whopping three races to spare.
Asked about Bagnaia’s cautious-looking Valencia weekend so far, Quartararo said: “To be honest, I don’t care.
“It’s funny because on TV it looks like only we’re racing, him and me. You always see us on TV.
“But in the end I need to focus on myself. It’s not that we have only five points of difference and we are fighting really closely. We have a massive difference.
“What matters to me is to win. What he does is not my problem.”
And asked whether he expected other riders to be mindful of his title aspirations should they go wheel-to-wheel on Sunday, he joked: “Ah, I also don’t care about this.
“To be honest, when the goal is that clear in your head, I don’t give any energy to think about other things.”
Like the day prior, Quartararo finished Saturday two tenths of a second off the pace – but it meant fourth on the grid rather than eighth in FP2.
“I think we are in a really good way, we start in a really good position – the pace is good, the tyres are quite clear, so I’m feeling confident,” he said.
“It’s since Germany [in June] that we haven’t fought for any victory. It will be super important for me to fight till the last lap. And I’m pretty happy about my weekend already. And it’s missing one day – can’t wait for tomorrow.
“The feeling is hard, it’s difficult, we are not having an easy bike, in Turn 1 the bike is shaking on the braking going in – but I’m feeling confident.”
Asked whether the race – at a track that is not particularly conducive to overtaking – can be won from the second row, he replied in the affirmative, perhaps also emboldened by going from 12th to sixth at the start at Sepang.
“And you know, during the season, you will never make a… strange overtake, take that amount of risk to make an overtake… but today [Sunday] is the day that I can do whatever I want. And I will need to do it.
“It is a race that we will need to be aggressive but intelligent in. The tyres will be constant – but during the past you always see the first 20 laps really good, but then the last seven laps it drops quite fast.
“But I’m feeling confident, tyre consumption is better than expected.
“But of course I will have to go really aggressive at the beginning.”
