{"id":668594,"date":"2026-05-13T17:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T17:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/668594\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T17:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T17:02:11","slug":"fabio-quartararo-this-what-im-looking-at-ahead-of-catalunya-motogp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/668594\/","title":{"rendered":"Fabio Quartararo: \u201cThis what I’m looking at\u2026\u201d ahead of Catalunya MotoGP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fabio Quartararo says being able to push closer to the limit of his Yamaha V4 was key to achieving the bike\u2019s best-yet MotoGP weekend at Le Mans.<\/p>\n

After reverting to last year’s front wing, Quartararo qualified sixth in front of his home fans, before finishing fifth in the Sprint and sixth in the grand prix.<\/p>\n

That smashed the V4\u2019s previous best grand prix result of 14th, and Quartararo is now eager to see if the enhanced \u2018feeling\u2019 continues at this weekend\u2019s Catalunya round.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Jerez, I was really far from my best lap time of 2025. [At Le Mans] I was only four tenths behind. It was still four tenths, but we can be happy that I can feel more the limit of the bike,\u201d Quartararo<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

\"Fabio <\/p>\n

Fabio Quartararo, 2026 French MotoGP.<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n

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The 2021 world champion emphasised that the progress had come from better front feeling, rather than any performance parts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always try to find performance with the setting but I think once we have made five laps, we know where our base is,” he explained.<\/p>\n

“So until we have new items, we will not change the bike now\u2026. When the team brings some items, we will test them and see if we have some more performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have worked a lot on the electronics this year, for me to take more control and less the electronics. So this was good, but we can see that Pecco in the first laps just overtook me in Turn 1 like nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen of course we still have to [find] some power, especially from third to sixth, some more grip… plus, plus, plus.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Fabio <\/p>\n

Fabio Quartararo, 2026 French MotoGP.<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n

“This is more what I’m looking at”<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the stopwatch put Quartararo almost twenty seconds closer to the race winner than he\u2019d been in the previous Jerez race.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the position is a number, but in Jerez after 26 laps we finished 29 seconds from Alex [Marquez]. [At Le Mans] we finished 7 seconds from Jorge [Martin],” said Quartararo.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this is more what I’m looking at. More than lap time, how close we are. And I think it was positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Fabio <\/p>\n

Fabio Quartararo, 2026 French MotoGP.<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n

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Quartararo – understood to be joining Honda for the new 850cc era in 2027 – took his debut grand prix victory at Barcelona in Moto2, then stood on the top step of the MotoGP podium in 2020 and 2022.<\/p>\n

Last year, he finished second in the Sprint and fifth in the grand prix on the former Inline-powered machine.<\/p>\n

“I was really pleased with how I was feeling on the bike during the Le Mans Saturday and Sunday, and the results were pretty good,\u201d Quartararo said ahead of Catalunya.<\/p>\n

\u201cMontmelo is a track I like, and this weekend will be a good test to understand if the setting that we found at the Jerez Test also works well here.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m focused and motivated, as always, so I’ll be pushing to get the best possible results again.”<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who will win the 2026 Catalan MotoGP race?Pedro Acosta<\/p>\n

0% (0 votes)<\/p>\n

Marco Bezzecchi<\/p>\n

27% (7 votes)<\/p>\n

Pecco Bagnaia<\/p>\n

4% (1 vote)<\/p>\n

Fabio di Giannantonio<\/p>\n

0% (0 votes)<\/p>\n

Jorge Martin<\/p>\n

42% (11 votes)<\/p>\n

Alex Marquez<\/p>\n

19% (5 votes)<\/p>\n

Ai Ogura<\/p>\n

8% (2 votes)<\/p>\n

Pembalap lain (beri tahu kami di komentar)<\/p>\n

0% (0 votes)<\/p>\n

Total votes: 26<\/p>\n

Le Mans also saw flashes of promise for team-mate Alex Rins<\/a>, who qualified directly into Qualifying 2 before finishing 13th in the Sprint and then a season-best 12th in the grand prix, albeit 25-seconds behind Quartararo.<\/p>\n

“I always enjoy the round in Catalonia,\u201d Rins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the opportunity to really work on the bike’s set-up in Montmel\u00f3 as we also have the test after the race weekend, so this will allow us to dive a bit deeper into the data and try more options.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe goal for the race weekend is to find the feeling again that I had on the French GP Friday and then let’s see what we can do.”<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fabio Quartararo says being able to push closer to the limit of his Yamaha V4 was key to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[40457,64,63,16230,10671,806,805,803,804,85,3561],"class_list":["post-668594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-alex-rins","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fabio-quartararo","tag-monster-energy-yamaha-motogp","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports","tag-yamaha"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}