MotoGP Mugello: Quartararo ‘didn’t expect podium, arrived with no confidence’

Monster Energy Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo battled hard for 20 points on Sunday after fearing a race of no confidence in the Italian Grand Prix.

Launching from the second row, alongside title rival and home hero Pecco Bagnaia and with a raft of Ducati’s in front of him, the defending champion had a fight on his hands from the start of the Mugello race. But despite the odds, and his down on power YZR-M1, Quartararo enjoyed one of the best performances of his career, closing in on eventual winner Bagnaia in the latter stages to cross the line just half a second adrift after 23 challenging laps.

“To be honest, I think is the best race of my career,’ Quartararo admitted after the flag. “Of course I prefer to win but the way I fight during the race - and we arrive with no confidence to the race! Before the race, I say if I can be P6, P5 would be a really great result and we finished P2!

“Amazing race, finishing less than half second from Pecco. I feel I was faster but you know, is tough to overtake and we was missing a little bit of horsepower. But anyway, I feel happy and I feel that today we make a massive job because we finished on the podium and I didn’t expect that!”

“Was strange, because of course arriving here the main problem was the top speed, before to arrive,” he continued on his Tuscan woes. “But Friday and Saturday basically I didn’t complain many times about the top speed because I knew was much more bigger problems than the top speed.

“All the weekend I was not feeling good with the bike. We had a new fairing that basically disturb us all the weekend. I was not feeling good but we thought that such a small difference on a fairing was not the problem.

“We decide for the race to go back with our standard bike. We