Yamaha’s performance in the MotoGP pre-season test at Sepang has been soured by a surprising lack of one-lap pace, leaving title hopeful Fabio Quartararo clearly alarmed.
Quartararo and team-mate Franco Morbidelli have both been revelling in the improved top speed of the new M1, with Yamaha appearing to have fixed the big shortcoming that cost Quartararo so dearly during his failed 2022 title defence.
But when it came to both riders trying a ‘time attack’ in testing on Sunday, it proved a serious disappointment, Quartararo and Morbidelli placing 19th and 20th on the day, over a second off the pace.
Morbidelli, who described the test as an “overall positive” in terms of engine gains, new parts and Yamaha’s revised “clinical” approach, said: “There is a huge bad aspect of today. Which is the time attack.
“Unfortunately I did just one time attack, because then it was starting to rain – but I think I would not have done much better.
“So, that’s the negative aspect of today. But the team will work to improve this. We will try to improve this for the Portimao test.”
Quartararo’s comments were similar, leading him to conclude the Sepang test with a “mixed feeling”.
“The feeling wasn’t great. It was great in some areas, with old tyres I am feeling super happy,” he said, pointing to a pace of low-2m00s on heavily used rubber.
“And we put a new tyre and it’s a nightmare.
“We have to figure out why with a new tyre we cannot make a step forward. And we know that is the most important thing right now – with these sprint races, qualifying.
“And right now we are not able to make any step in front.”
Neither rider had much of an explanation for what was going on. Morbidelli simply said the bike “doesn’t work with new tyres and light [fuel] configuration”, while pointing out that when fuelled-up on fresh rubber it was fine.
“It’s frustrating,” he said. “We know that our potential is totally different. And I feel that the potential of the bike is not this.”
And Quartararo pointed out that “last year in qualifying here we struggled too”, but he wasn’t comforted by that.
“It’s not looking so good. So hopefully in Portimao we’ll find a solution.”
Asked by The Race as to his idea for an underlying cause, he said: “That’s what we are looking for. This is the problem because, if I don’t look at the screen and I don’t see the laptime, I feel I’m riding in 1m58s-low. Then I look at the laptime and I’m on 1m59s-low.
“It’s like, what is happening? It’s not that I arrive to the box and I say, ‘I’m losing the front everywhere’ or, ‘I have no grip’. I don’t know what’s going on.
“And this is the biggest problem. It’s the biggest question mark.”
He also acknowledged that it fitted into a wider trend of Yamaha’s qualifying decline, the brand going from nine poles in both 2019 and 2020, to six poles in Quartararo’s title-winning 2021, to just one pole last year.
“I feel like every year we have been dropping so much in qualifying – 2019, my first year, I made a lot of pole positions. Then dropping, dropping… and now it’s impossible. And the worst thing is we don’t know why.”
