Yamaha MotoGP rider Fabio Quartararo admits team-mate Franco Morbidelli has “not made the step” forward the team will have hoped for during a dreadful 2022 campaign.
Morbidelli has been Quartararo’s team-mate for the majority of the reigning champion’s MotoGP career, save for half a season in 2021.
He was bested by Quartararo as a rookie in 2019 but led Yamaha’s charge on an older-spec bike as Quartararo wavered the following year, and was then drafted into the works team mid-season in 2021 as Maverick Vinales was let go.
Morbidelli’s late-2021 form was impossible to make any wide conclusions into given he was coming off a major knee surgery, yet it now appears fairly clear he had looked more competitive that year than he has over the course of 2022.
The lack of a fellow Yamaha presence at the front of the grid, in stark contrast to Pecco Bagnaia being surrounded by lighting-fast other Ducatis, may have played a part in Quartararo likely facing a once-unthinkable defeat in the ’22 race.
Morbidelli has taken points off Bagnaia only once this season, by finishing seventh in the wet second race of the campaign at Mandalika in which Bagnaia was 15th. It is Morbidelli’s sole top-10 finish of the campaign so far, with no results above 13th place since.
Asked ahead of the penultimate race in Sepang about having been ‘on your own’ against the might of the Ducatis and Morbidelli’s struggles preventing him from playing a part, Quartararo said: “At the end, racing against the Ducatis, it’s everyone racing against the Ducatis.
“I don’t know with Franco, it’s a question I cannot answer. It’s difficult to know.
“Of course he made the change from ’19 bike to ’21 that is really similar to this [current] one, and the bike is totally different [to the 2019 version], you need to ride in a different situation.
“But it’s been already one year and a half to adapt. I cannot answer this question.”
Prodded further on whether he had queried Yamaha about it, Quartraro said: “It’s difficult. At the end, of course we [Yamaha] are struggling this year in general, we have struggled much more than last year.
“But… at the end, if I can make great laptimes, he can do it. This is the thing.
“Many times I’ve helped Franco, but he’s never really made the step on qualifying and in the race.”
Like Quartararo, Morbidelli has looked stronger in practice in clean air relative to Sunday race conditions, and over longer runs relative to single-lap pace, across the season.
But both his highs and his lows have been considerably lower, as is reflected by his points tally of 31 relative to Quartararo’s 219.
Yamaha says Morbidelli has made a shift in working more to adjust his style towards the current M1 package rather than make the bike suit him better. “It’s been important, useful to be more aggressive with throttle and brakes. That helped a bit,” Morbidelli said of his style tweaks.
Quizzed on whether he’d been wishing for Yamaha to give him back the ’19 bike that he’d thrived on, Morbidelli said: “No. Not that much. I have good memories with the old bike. But I live in the present. I work with what I have.”
The moment of truth?
Yamaha is set to bring a more powerful M1 to competition in 2023, with both Quartararo and Morbidelli having been full of praise of what prototypes they’ve got to try so far.
A more powerful engine could ameliorate Morbidelli’s struggles, given that despite flashes of genuinely solid race pace at various weekends he has found himself helpless to make up for his qualifying weakness in the same way the likes Enea Bastianini and Brad Binder capitalise on improved Sunday performance relative to Saturday.
Asked by The Race whether he was already using this Sepang weekend to prepare himself for testing the new M1 there next year, Morbidelli said: “I’m gonna be pretty focused on my job, my current job. There is not a useful way – there is not a way for us to work looking at ’23.
“I don’t see how we could work looking at ’23, if not trying settings. And if that is working towards ’23, we’re already doing that.
“But… I don’t see any other way. I heard about [Marc] Marquez working, focused on ’23. but I don’t see how – can you explain?”
It was put to Morbidelli that Marquez, who has spoken of sacrificing ultimate race weekend potential in 2022 in order to maximise 2023 preparation, has been putting a new swingarm, new frame and new aero through its paces in various practice sessions.
“I mean, apart from different aero it’s what we’re doing,” said Morbidelli. “It’s normal work!
“If the swingarm you’re supposed to try for 2023 goes well, you use it for 2022. No?”
