Since the start of the 2021 MotoGP championship, Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo has looked like a much different character from the one who struggled so much during last year.
Faster, more consistent and more settled, it’s been a winning formula for him, as reflected in his results and his position as runaway leader of the title race.
Four times a winner from nine races – and arguably denied two other chances thanks to arm pump at Jerez and malfunctioning leathers in Barcelona – he’s never really put a foot wrong.
Chalking up no DNFs and no pointless finishes despite his various issues, he headed into the summer break holding a 34-point lead over fellow Frenchman Johann Zarco.
Compare that to last season, when he managed to absolutely dominate the opening two rounds in Jerez with runaway victories – and then immediately started to struggle once the championship moved on.
Taking just one other podium, when he again won in Barcelona, the season that started out so promisingly ended in bitter disappointment as he came home a lowly eighth in the championship standings despite his three race wins, while Joan Mir picked up the crown with a single victory to his name.
But things look very different this year for Quartararo, not just because he’s stepped up to the factory seat and taken the place of none other than Valentino Rossi himself – something that the 22-year-old admits caused him to start the year full of trepidation.
“To be honest, I didn’t have pressure from the team in the beginning of the year but I had pressure from the outside,” he told The Race after winning last time out at the Dutch TT. “Even if I tried not to hear it, I took the place of the king, Vale, and as a consequence, you always have this kind of small pressure.
“Comments from the media about how you need to do well because you have an important spot in the team – and I had to be like, please stop with it. After the victory in Qatar, I was so happy, because since that moment I haven’t heard any more of this.”
Yet like he says, that pressure seems to have only lasted until he stamped his authority on the Yamaha team and on the championship by winning the second race of the year in Qatar.
The victory kicked off a streak that continued until MotoGP paused for a five-week holiday, the consistency he’s shown this year is something that’s been absent – but comes as a result of a more focused mental strategy.
It’s not hard to see that Quartararo has worked hard this winter to grow up. Training himself not just physically but working with a mental conditioning coach as well, he’s been more resilient at every turn – even as the bizarre world of MotoGP has continued to throw roadblocks at him.
From the opening race of the year, where he showed a new willingness to settle for good points rather than overreach in the search for immediate glory, to a podium at home in the French rain only days after arm pump surgery to cure the problems that beset him in Jerez, he’s never showed the weaknesses that plagued his campaign last year and led to inconsistent up and down form.
And as far as he’s concerned, that successful approach is exemplified in one particular race: his victory at the Portuguese Grand Prix. The site of one of his worst performances of 2020, when he came home in 14th, he admitted to The Race that it was because he wasn’t mentally focused on the race last year – but the way he bounced back in 2021 means he’s now fully ready to believe that a title is possible.
“I expected to do well this year, because when I won in Portimao, it was very important for my mind,” he said after the race in Assen.
“2020 was a disaster, but this year was amazing. Last season I wasn’t concentrated there because I knew I had lost the championship, but this year it came at the beginning of the season.
“But it was a clear moment in my mind. From the beginning of the season, I expected to have a good year, but not as good as this one.”
And the thing is, right now it’s hard to argue with him about just how good a year he’s having and how well he’s done since replacing Rossi. Sure, there’s still a long way to go with more than half of the season’s races remaining.
But with a strong year, incredible consistency and no real title challenger emerging as a threat to him, it’s going to take a lot of effort to see Quartararo shifted from the throne now that he already seems to have beaten his biggest enemy – himself.
