Fabio Quartararo didn’t mince words after a tough opening day at the Dutch MotoGP, describing Yamaha’s performance as “zero grip, zero turning, zero power” following Friday practice at Assen.
Despite pushing his Yamaha V4 to within a second of Friday’s fastest man, Marco Bezzecchi, the Frenchman ended the session 15th—missing direct access to Qualifying 2 by just 0.385s. Quartararo appeared frustrated on track and was candid about the bike’s struggles afterward.
“As you can imagine, it’s difficult,” Quartararo admitted. “Right now, the goal is just to fight for points and maximize what we have.” When asked about improvements in fast corners, he was blunt: “No, we’re not going to make progress there. We need to improve everywhere because we have zero grip, zero turning, zero power.”
Quartararo noted that straight-line braking remains the only real strength of the bike, but that its excessive weight compared to last year is making life even harder. “The bike is a lot heavier than last year. Physically, it’s tough, and with all that extra weight, it’s even more difficult.”
Yamaha’s test rider Augusto Fernandez debuted a new front wing, but Quartararo described its effect as “really, really small.” Meanwhile, teammate Alex Rins was the next-best Yamaha, finishing 17th and over 1.2 seconds off the pace.
With points as the realistic target for Sunday’s race, Quartararo and Yamaha face an uphill battle to turn their season around.
