“In races what is the rule is the head”

After the withdrawal of Daniel Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo Y valentino rossiand the damage to the dry dock for two years Marc Márquez, MotoGP was left without a reference rider, it was orphaned with the right names that every sport should have. In fact, by 2020 up to nine different drivers submitted their candidacies winning GGPP; many won but no one got star status.

It will be two years before MotoGP can say that it has a reference rider again: Fabio Quartararo. At 23 years old, he is MotoGP World Champion in 2021 and this season he is leading the provisional championship. With Italian grandparents, a French passport and a long history in our country -he studied ESO in Valencia-, Quartararo speaks four languages ​​perfectly. Polite, with an open character, Fabio is now the best ambassador of MotoGP.

In his country, he is already a reference athlete, as evidenced by the eight covers allocated to him by L’Equipe, the prestigious sports newspaper in France. The latter, Mbappe and Verstappen were lowered into small boxes; nothing. The first of those covers was obtained in July 2020 when he won his first MotoGP GP, also the first for a French rider in the entire history of MotoGP. Ironically, on the same day that Marc Márquez experienced the accident he is still in the dry dock.

Before he went on vacation, Fabio Quartararo and I sat down to talk about racing, cycling and how he feels about his role as a reference in MotoGP. A popularity priced in the form of what I call “Valentino Rossi Syndrome”. As such, Quartararo is starting to feel the B side of popularity.

“Well … Yes, in France I meet a lot of people. I kinda go because I’ve been in Andorra for four years. But when I go I have to be careful with what you do, with what you say. It’s also true that less the cost of a normal life.When you go out with your family to a restaurant you know that one, two, three, four people will come to talk to me or take a picture.With my family I want to Want I want to be just Fabio, and not Fabio Quartararo, but it’s complicated. “

Close and easy to talk to, Quartararo has grown over the years as a pilot in plain sight. Especially last season, when he proved to have corrected his weaknesses from last year. Admitting and accepting his problems and finding ways to correct them is one of the main virtues of Fabio the pilot. If in 2020 a series of unexpected events emotionally intercepted him in the final sprint for the title, from championship leader to finishing eighth !, in 2021 he started the campaign with a different mentality after working with a sports psychologist. The prize is the MotoGP crown.

“Every problem has a solution … For example, we are not fast in the water. But instead of clinging to ‘let’s slow down, let’s slow down’, what I do is look at how we can improve. We may not be perfect, but we can make the situation better. What is clear to me is that I no longer let the negative block me. ”

It was this mentality that helped Fabio command the first half of the current season, despite having the slowest bike on the MotoGP grid. A situation he denounced in the preseason, but when the championship started, he decided to erase it from his mind.

“There’s no reason to listen to myself repeatedly complain about the same thing when, by regulation, there’s no option to change the machines. What do I do, complain every day about 20 GGPP. Just so, when the season started, I told the reporters I wasn’t going to talk about it anymore. For me the subject died. The only way I could do my best with the material I had. And that’s what I did. “

This maturity can be seen in all aspects. In 2019 Quartararo fell six times; in 2020, eight; 2021, seven; in 2022 he has eleven GGPPs, three. Some numbers indicate that he is piloting with a margin, which at the moment he does not seem to need to move the wire.

“No, I’m on board … I don’t know how to explain … I’m very sorry for things, unlike what can happen to other drivers, I don’t need to crash to find the limit. I know very well when we will enter the limit zone. In that situation my bike gives me a bit of a margin, it warns me a lot. I lack this feeling, for example, in 2020, which is definitely the year in which I fell the most times; eight times in 14 races. “

Reviewing the results of the races held so far, clearly visible how there was Fabio Quartararo before the World Cup came to Europe and another after. If in that first part the French rider raised a lot of doubts, once the European GGPP started his performance — the Netherlands next – was to expect a defender of his title. What has changed? What did Yamaha give him so he could change his gait dramatically?

“The bike on which we finished early in the season was the same as the one from the first GP, both; I promise you. Let’s see how I can explain this to you … I started the World Cup in Qatar the wrong way. I expect more from Yamaha’s work last winter after engine development was frozen for 18 months. I was expecting a faster machine, but they didn’t get it. I started complaining a lot about speed; in Indonesia it rains; in Argentina again I complained that the bike would not run … And this is not the way. Every time I get off the track, I do it with the thought ‘Again! Yes, I know I won’t win ‘”.

“On the trip between Argentina and the United States I told myself I was wrong, that I went into a negative loop, that it was pointless to continue like this. In Austin I said to myself ‘Yeah, you’re not going to win, but get out there and give your best ‘… And it worked. It probably won’t be reflected in the result, but I left the United States with a completely different mentality. No, it wasn’t the bike that changed, it’s my head. “

After reading the latter, one understands Fabio Quartararo when he admits that he is more of a driver competing with himself than his rivals. In other words, his challenge is to speed up, not just beat the other rider on the track… ”Ultimately, I know that by beating myself, other things are added.”

For Yamaha, Fabio Quartararo is what Marc Márquez is for Honda, that is, the pilot on whom they rely up to the brain. Just a few weeks ago both sides signed the renewal of their relationship. The French failure in the work of engineers in Japan led him to seriously consider changing the landscape. But knowing what was at stake, Yamaha eventually put all the meat on the grill and convinced Quartararo to continue with their sets.

“Yes, it’s been months of conversation. Before the season starts, my goal is to stay with Yamaha. Considering a change after winning the World Cup with them seems pretty absurd. But more importantly, the my #1 goal was to have the most competitive project.Even before Jerez I was ready to leave.But Yamaha put a project on the table that I wanted.They hired engineers working on the machine next year , and I’m very comfortable with the M1. We’re still two years away. “

What is Quartararo thinking …

1. MotoGP has too many races
No.
2. Isn’t it a paradox that the slowest bike in the World Speed ​​Championship will win?
Yes
3. Aerodynamics outward or left
Ugh … I would say
4. Whole shot device…
Outside
5. What do you think is Michelin’s quality control?
For me it was very good.
6. Want to try the electric Ducati?
No.
7. Do you know how many liters of fuel you spend in a season?
500 liters?
8. Do you understand the standard followed by the Stewart Panel in judging controversial racial actions?
No, I do not understand [Respuesta antes de ser penalizado en Assen]
9. How many days of PR do you have on your contract?
Too much … I think with 20
10. Which of the current riders catches your attention on the track?
Aleix… Because his style is so old at school, but he rides the bike like a new era.
11. Does the press bother you?
It depends on the moment. When I win races, I enjoy conducting interviews, but when you fall or in bad weather I would say you enter a state where you can get angry faster. If I had to make an average I would say ‘no’.