MotoGP Silverstone: ‘Rear tyre a mistake’ for Quartararo, ‘Bagnaia the threat’

Monster Energy Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo faced a challenging British GP at Silverstone on Sunday.

While the reigning champion had a long lap penalty to dispatch in the opening stages of the 20-lap race, it was his rear tyre choice which ultimately struck the biggest blow to his high points-scoring chances.

Having failed to try the hard Michelin option across the UK weekend, Quartararo and his Yamaha squad were sure the Medium had what it took to challenge at the front. But in traffic, after the penalty dropped him to fifth - behind Ducati Lenovo’s Pecco Bagnaia and ahead, initially, of Aprilia’s Maverick Viñales - the YZR-M1 struggled, eventually forcing the Frenchman to drop back to eighth at the line.

“I think we made a mistake of not trying the hard rear tyre in practice,” Quartararo said of his disappointing Sunday. “I think the first lap I did everything perfect on start, long lap, everything was okay but just behind the riders my rear tyre overheats so much and we don’t know really why. The reason I think is because following people was difficult. So yeah, difficult to not really made the hard tyre decision.

“I did my best and I think with the medium tyre, we couldn’t make better.

“If you check, all the top ten was with the hard rear and we were the only one with the medium. On the practice this morning, I did ’59.9 with almost the race distance. So that was something that make us took the decision that we were pretty sure but in the group was totally different.

“I’m disappointed because I thought the long lap will have penalised me much more and finally was not so bad. Just the rear tyre was so bad and behind riders, we cannot ride our bike, is just nightmare. When is one bike is okay but as soon as there is more