MotoGP Aragon: Low grip disguising chassis potential for Quartararo

Monster Energy Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo was once again surrounded by Ducatis as he sat second in the MotoGP practice times at Aragon.

The solo non-Desmosedici in the top five, the reigning champion completed Friday’s two free practice sessions with a best time of 1’47.476, just 0.074s shy of Pramac’s Jorge Martin in the battle for day one honours.

With the Alcañiz track lacking in grip, an ongoing issue for the M1, Quartararo put in a strong performance against the Bologna bullets but his confidence was waining regarding the potential for the remainder of the weekend.

“Friday we are always in a great position, then when is coming on Saturday and Sunday we are struggling a little bit more,” Quartararo admitted. “But let’s hope to find a solution, try to make a step forward for tomorrow.

“Especially the goal for tomorrow will be to make a great qualifying and then on the race see how is going. I feel we have to make a great FP3 and a great qualifying to make a great race on Sunday.”

One noticeable addition to the Yamaha garage this weekend was the new chassis introduced during the Misano test. The Frenchman back-to backed the upgrade with his standard M1 but was reserved in his conclusions after the two 45-minute sessions.

“I don’t know,” he said cautiously. “The difference in Misano I felt much more but here I made a few runs with the new one, few runs with the standard one and it’s really similar. I make my fastest lap time with the new one but the difference is really small so we will see if we keep it. But in any case, if I keep it or not, will not make a big change.

“The grip can be a thing because in Misano when we test the conditions were the best - because when you make two days in a row with MotoGP bikes, MotoGP