It certainly isn’t a surprise that virtually every other team in the MotoGP championship showed an interest in signing Fabio Quartararo to a contract beginning next year. He is the reigning world champion, and currently leading the championship points at just 23 years of age. His talent on a motorcycle, and commitment to do what is necessary to win, is also already well-know throughout the paddock.
This year perfectly illustrates Quartararo’s otherworldly skills, as the three other Yamaha pilots in MotoGP this year, including two MotoGP race winners Andrea Dovizioso and Franco Morbidelli, find it nearly impossible to break into the top ten at the checkered flag. Understandably, Yamaha was desperate to keep him, and now they have announced a deal that ensures Quartararo will stay a Yamaha MotoGP rider for another two years, through the 2024 season. Yamaha’s desire to retain Quartararo was only intensified by the recent announcement that it’s two-rider satellite team would be switching to Aprilia bikes beginning next year.
Here is the official announcement from Yamaha:
It is with great pleasure that Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. confirm Fabio Quartararo as a Factory Yamaha rider for the 2023 and 2024 MotoGP season.
Quartararo has shown great skills, comradery, and consistency so far in his two years with the Yamaha Factory Racing Team in the MotoGP World Championship. The successful partnership led to his first MotoGP World Championship Title last year, in his very first season with the Factory team. He is currently also leading the 2022 standings by 8 points.
Further Yamaha highlights on the Frenchman’s résumé are 6 race wins and 14 podiums with the Factory Team in the 2021 and 2022 season so far, as well as 3 race wins and 10 podiums with the satellite team the two years prior. A contributing factor to his success were his 16 pole positions and 38 front row starts out of a total of 59 Grand Prix weekends aboard the YZR-M1.
These achievements on top of his undeniable talent, unequalled motivation, and infectious cheerful personality have Yamaha fully confident in their partnership with the 23-year-old.
LIN JARVIS
MANAGING DIRECTOR, YAMAHA MOTOR RACING
We are very happy to have reached an agreement with Fabio to continue with the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP team for 2023 and beyond.
We brought Fabio into the Factory team last year knowing he is a special talent, but he even exceeded our expectations. One doesn’t often come across a rider of his calibre. He was already showing his talent and speed in his two years with the SRT satellite team in 2019 and 2020, but when he made the step up to the Factory team, we could really see him growing stronger and maturing as a rider.
In Fabio’s first season and a half we’ve booked many successes: 6 race wins, 14 podiums, 6 pole positions, and the 2021 MotoGP World Title. These results have come from a strong team effort from the rider, his crew, our engineers, and all team staff working together with a positive ‘can-do’ spirit.
With Fabio we know he will always put in 100% of his best effort, and we have assured him that Yamaha will do the same and we will invest in future developments so that together we can challenge for the MotoGP World Championship Titles for years to come.
FABIO QUARTARARO
I am really happy to announce to all of you that I will stay with Yamaha for two more years.
In the past, moving up to MotoGP with Yamaha and later to the Factory team were no-brainers. Yamaha believed in me from the very beginning, and that is something I do not take lightly. But that being said, this new agreement was a big decision. I’m at a great point in my career, so I took a bit more time taking this decision to be sure.
I believe in the Yamaha MotoGP project, and I feel Yamaha are truly motivated. And now that we have officially confirmed our decision to continue on this path together, we can fully focus on the current season.
I want to say ‘Thanks!’ to the people around me, who always help me and support me, as well as to the fans who are cheering me on. I really do appreciate all the support.
there is more to this than bhp. roberts was down on power to the harleys and suzukis. ironically, spencer was down on power to roberts. lawson was down and so was rainey. it’s not how big your rod is, it’s how you wiggle your worm. right now, fabio is winning bass tournaments.
Yamaha having a weak engine is such a crazy phenomenon. They have long been an engine powerhouse. All the popular Japanese car engines are Yamaha designs. Any time Toyota wants a cool engine for a Lexus, they call Yamaha. Ford and GM have done the same in the past. To have people talking about engine defecits for years on a piece of equipment that actually says Yamaha on it is something nobody could ever have predicted. Yet, here we are.
Tune in next decade when Ducati can’t figure out the color red, Honda does something nice, and Harley enters MotoGP.
I’m guessing it’s not the engine. For years now the motogp bikes have all had a large amount of engine power. Getting it to the ground in a useful way has been the problem. And that means the electronics. My guess is the engine has plenty of power. The problem is in how to get that power to the ground in a way the rider can use effectively.
According to FQ himself, it’s only the engine. He is able to make the drive off of corners he needs to position to pass in the next corner against the more powerful Ducati or any other bike. The chassis and electronics are good. He only has a top-speed deficit.
It’s interesting to look at the FP 1 and 2 results from today at Catalunya. He’s a 3 km’s slower then the fastest bikes but still even with and even faster than some for top speed. Same top speed as Jorge Martin and Luca Marini(Ducati GP21 and 22), faster than Nakagami. He’s in 8th right now but I expect his race pace will be up front.
The nannies have no effect on top speed down a long straight. The ABS doesn’t keep Q from out braking people. The TC does not hinder him from making time on other riders in the technical areas of the track. A good chassis requires less nannies. The other Yamaha riders might be having trouble. But not Q. He’s losing distance on the long straights. That’s all about power. The nannies are there for the corners and those are his strength. Or he wouldn’t be getting the results he does while people talk about him bei g down on power.
One area where the nannies could be coming into play is at Ducati. The nannies might be making rideable what would otherwise be an unruly beast that is aggressively tuned to make the power that it does. One might point to Q’s success in the technical areas of the track and say that the Yamaha, at least for Q, works better there because it requires less nanny.
VLJ, sorry man, that just isn’t reality. He passed several of them to reach P2. For the most part they could not even momentarily pass him back. The bike does not lack “grunt”. If it did there would be nothing he could do to compete. As I point out above, he’d be challenged at the beginning of the straight and out of the picture at the end.
I’d say that a two year contract with Yamaha means they promised him a new engine for next year.
Have to wonder what Yamaha promised him, in terms of future motor development. He was sorely disappointed over their failure to bring him anything new this past offseason. This go-around, in order to get him to sign on the dotted line for two more seasons, they had to have assuaged his doubts going forward.
FQ told the press today that Yamaha has a new team of engineers working on the motor for next year, and have promised him competitive horsepower. BTW, some readers (not VLJ, who gets it) expressed doubt that FQ was lacking significant top speed at Mugello, but here are the radar-gun facts: https://resources.motogp.com/files/results/2022/ITA/MotoGP/EventMaximumSpeed.pdf?_ga=2.174400545.2006392682.1654209656-1319258485.1642009040
The Darryn Binder number is a complete outlier for Yamaha related to a single trip down the front straight during the race … some sort of unique drafting effect, perhaps.
Oh I get it, I just don’t think people understand that this number doesn’t mean that the bike goes this speed down the entire length of a straightaway.
This difference only comes into play in the last second or two of the longest straightaways in the sport. These bikes have significant limits in traction and wheelie balance. If it were as simple as more power, the Ducatis could pass everyone as the beginning of the straightaway, not the end. FQ would never get the opportunity to outbrake them.
You’re correct, Darryn Binder received a multi-bike tow that allowed him to slipstream to a one-time top speed he never was able to approach otherwise.
The thing is, it’s not just the top-speed deficit. The Yamaha also lacks the corner-exit grunt of the Ducati and KTM. Quartararo has to make up in corner speeds what he loses everywhere else, and this puts a lot more wear on the tires. Combine this additional tire-wear with the elevated tire pressures he encounters whenever he gets stuck behind those big red mobile homes, without being to pull out from their draft and pass them into clean air, as they so easily do to him every lap, and the result is that he walks a knife-edge dance with his tires that no other rider on the track has to duplicate.
If Fabio is successful in defending his title this year against eight Ducatis, four KTMs, and two fast Aprilias, never mind the Suzukis, it would be one of the most impressive rider achievements in recent memory.
Very nicely put VLJ!
Yes Fabio is a huge, and seemingly now mature talent at just 23 years to do what he did last weekend against the pack. I’m wondering if it wasn’t for MM93 (out for the year and ??) and FQ, would Japan Inc have a chance in MotoGP with the Suzuki team out?
MotoGP could become a European makers championship unless Japan Inc stumps up ridable bikes for young talent.