Fabio Quartararo
Fabio Quartararo kicked off the 2020 season with his first-ever MotoGP race win (finishing 1st) – putting him at the top of the riders’ standings. On the other hand, Team-mate Franco Mobidelli equally finished the race with his best-ever MotoGP finish (in fifth) helping PETRONAS Yamaha SRT at the top of the teams’ standings.
At the race yesterday, Quartararo had a good start but he lost places going into the opening corners at Jerez. The Frenchman, however, soon recovered and made his way towards the top; where he battled fellow Yamaha YZR-M1 rider, Maveric Viñales. Sometime later, Quartararo made his way past and pulled out a gap to his rival. Fabio made no mistakes from then until the finish line where he claimed his first-ever MotoGP race win. On top of this, Fabio will now go into the next race of the year; which is also to be held at the 4.4km long Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto, as points leader and confident of another good result.
Team-mate Morbidelli whose qualifying difficulties made him start the race from tenth (Which then became 8th due to the withdrawal of two riders). However, Morbidelli raced smart and made his way through the pack to challenge for podium finish in the closing laps. Franco Morbidelli also claimed his best-ever MotoGP finish by crossing the line in fifth place.
“It feels incredible. I don’t think the feeling has sunk in yet, I think that will come when I watch the race again. It’s a shame that my family, friends and fans are not here to see it, but it feels so good to finally be on the stop step of the podium. It was an amazing race and we were so consistent even though the track was really bad. There was very little grip and the tyres just dropped off so fast. I felt great on the bike so thank you to my team, partners and to Yamaha for that. I had one of the scariest moments of the race in the same place where I had the problem last year, I was worried it was going to happen again! All was good, but the last ten laps felt like they took so long to complete. Every lap we got closer to the end I was feeling better and better, just having some fun.”
“This win is for my family, my brother especially, my best friend, my manager, all the fans who can’t be here, my team and also to those people that have suffered a lot during the last 4 months. I also want to wish a speedy recovery to Alex [Rins], Cal [Crutchlow] and Marc [Marquez].”
“It was a really good race. Starting from where I was, I was aiming for a top-five finish but surprisingly we were in the fight for the podium in the last two laps. I didn’t act in the right way in those two laps, I could have been a bit cleverer, but despite this it was a positive race. We came from behind and had some good battles, even though it was a tricky race. Now I will rest a bit and try to prepare for the next race. Our weak point this weekend was qualifying. Having the speed that we did it was not acceptable to start tenth, then ninth, then eighth. With such a narrow circuit it is not great to start from the third row. The front two rows are where you need to be to fight for the podium, so this will be our aim next weekend.”
“Also congratulations to Fabio. I’m really happy for him as he deserves this victory and he was unbelievably fast today. First and fifth position for the team shows the great job that every member of the team is doing. We are heading in the right direction!”
Trending:
iM Cubaholic Ep.12: Meet “Papa Jahat” – FNG Works’ 600cc Honda C70!