Quartararo: “I could really see our weak point, could not give more of a fight”
After seeing Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia crash out ahead of him, Quartararo was gifted the chance to stand on the podium for the first time since COTA.
Quartararo looked poised to claim third before Martin ran into issues with his leather, which saw a 1.4 second margin drop to sixth tenths.
Martin then recovered the time lost but made a mistake at turn three on the final, this time allowing Quartararo to not only catch him but overtake him.
Martin then produced a very aggressive move around turn six, as he swiped across the front of Quartararo’s Yamaha.
"Was really difficult to be honest," said Quartararo after the race. "Especially the last lap. I was always one-and-a-half/two seconds away from the top guys that were Pecco and Jorge.
"Marco [Bezzecchi] was really far away. But on the last lap I could really see our weak point more and more.
"We have to work on that part and hopefully we can make a step next year. We can’t really fight with them. We can hold the pace but we cannot really fight."
Quartararo also spoke about the near-miss with Martin, however the 2021 world champion avoided criticising the Spaniard.
The Frenchman added: "I saw that he was doing something strange with the leathers and thought it was maybe arm pump or something.
"But I could see what happened to him. The drive I had out of turn five was super bad. I was spinning like hell.
"I was trying to control it with the gas but unfortunately I had nothing more on the tyre. With the grip issues we are having I could not give more of a fight.
"Also going into turn ten I didn’t have the confidence. But I can be happy. Marco was on another level and yesterday Jorge won the sprint race; we weren’t able to really fight but we are getting closer."
