Quartararo faces ‘toughest job of my career’ after Phillip Island nightmare

Adding to the Frenchman’s woes, his third non-score in four races came at a flowing Phillip Island circuit that on paper offered his best chance of beating Bagnaia compared to the upcoming Sepang and Valencia rounds.

Qualifying fifth, directly between nearest title rivals Bagnaia and Aleix Espargaro, Quartararo briefly rose to third before finishing the opening lap in fifth.

Soon fighting a defensive battle, Quartararo’s challenge was then thrown off course, literally, when the rear of his Yamaha kicked sideways under braking for the Turn 4 hairpin, on lap 4.

Unable to make the corner, Quartararo threaded between his rivals as he ran wide and dropped to 22nd place.

“I braked, the back of the bike lifted and I had Marini in front so I had to go wide,” Quartararo said. “That was my mistake and it was not easy to recover.”

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Regrouping, Quartararo was up to 15th by lap 11, aided by the Jack Miller-Alex Marquez incident ahead, when he then lost the front into Turn 2 and crashed out.

“I think I overtook 4-5 riders, but I was also trying to save the tyres,” he said. “Then I pushed way too much in the entry [of turn 2], it was not a big difference in the corner speed but just out of [turn] one I was much faster than I used to be.”

With Bagnaia going on to finish third, Quartararo thus lost a title lead he has held since Portimao.

91 points ahead of Bagnaia after Sachsenring, Quartararo is now 14 behind heading into Sepang next weekend.

“Now we need to turn the page and we only have one job and it's trying to win,” Quartararo said. “It’s going to be the toughest job of my career, but I'm ready to fight for it.”

A late loss of the title lead prompted some comparisons with 2020, when Quartararo dropped from first to eighth in the world championship over the last four rounds.

Having then weathered a late Bagnaia charge to win the MotoGP crown last season, Quartararo feels the only issues he’s currently facing are technical.

“2020 was [because of] mentally and technically, and now I don't feel mentally like I’m over-thinking too much or not. So mentally I don't feel it’s about 2020,” he said.

“I’m just trying to do my best and I'm overriding a little bit too much and the risk of having a mistake is really close. So that's what happened today.”

The good news for Quartararo is that he would have been 23-points behind Bagnaia had Alex Rins and Marc Marquez not overtaken the Italian on the last lap.

‘We need rear grip’ - Quartararo agrees with Dovizioso?

Before calling an early end to his final MotoGP season at Misano, RNF’s Andrea Dovizioso clearly explained that a lack of rear grip, as well as the much-publicised power deficiency, was Yamaha’s biggest problem.

Quartararo seemed to disagree at the time, pointing out that top speed was the main area where he was losing out to rival machines.

That is already being worked on, with a promising first test of the prototype 2023 engine.

But in Australia the young Frenchman confirmed that rear grip is also badly needed to transform the M1 from being fast on its own, to fast in a race, especially at a tyre-hungry track like Phillip Island.

“Of course, we are missing the power, but also rear grip,” Quartararo said. “So this is going to be one thing we have to work on, to turn more tight with a little bit less corner speed in some kind of corners. That for me is the most important.

“We need more rear grip also because we need to save the tyres and try to have the best drive as possible."

‘A bike to fight for victories, not just fast in practice’

Quartararo added: “Of course I'm riding over the limit, but for me the problem is also that we ride in a different way than the others.

“So when I am alone, you can see that my pace is always super strong.

"Even in Austria, which is not the best track for us, we had one of the best paces.

"But then when we are in a race it’s always difficult.

“This is something that we need to realise, that we need a bike to fight for victories, not a bike just to go fast in practice.

“And then when you need to save the tyres [but] you miss grip and acceleration, like today, it’s not the best [situation]. Today I've made a mistake by braking too hard and going wide in turn 4.

“So I think for the future we need a bike that can switch to win races and think less about trying to have the most corner speed possible.”

With team-mate Franco Morbidelli also crashing out, of 18th, the top Yamaha rider on Sunday was RNF’s Cal Crutchlow in 13th, crossing the line just ahead of rookie team-mate Darryn Binder.