Yamaha: Quartararo penalty ‘unforeseen series of events', no 'malicious intent’
Monster Yamaha team principal explains why Fabio Quartararo was below the minimum tyre pressure in the Jerez Sprint, costing him a surprise podium.
The opening three rounds of the MotoGP season passed without any tyre pressure penalties, but no less than five riders were hit with 8-second post-race sanctions after Saturday’s Jerez Sprint.
The most high-profile was Fabio Quartararo, whose penalty cost him a rostrum after charging from 23rd to 3rd, aided by a chaotic 15 race accidents.
The other low-pressure penalties were for Raul Fernandez (6th), Fabio di Giannantonio (13th), Jack Miller (14th) and Quartararo’s Monster Yamaha team-mate Alex Rins (15th).
Riders are only required to stay above the minimum 1.8 bar front pressure for 30% of a Sprint, compared to 60% of the Sunday grand prix laps, so why were so many caught out?
Monster Yamaha team director Massimo Meregalli explained that starting so far back on the grid, it was expected that Quartararo would be running in (hotter) dirty air throughout the 12 laps.
“It's a pity that we got an 8s penalty for running tyre pressure lower than the advised parameters. There was only a very slight difference,” Meregalli said.
“The tyre pressure decision is based on a protocol. The fact that Fabio started the Sprint from the penultimate row was also taken into account.
“But Fabio then rode the Sprint with clear space ahead of him - something we couldn‘t have expected starting from P23 - and this lowered the tyre pressure.
"It was an unforeseen series of events that got us in this position, it was never malicious intent.”
Trackhouse team manager Wilco Zeelenberg, whose rider Raul Fernandez was demoted from sixth to twelfth by his penalty, gave a similar explanation:
“Unluckily Raul’s tyre pressure was too low in the front - he had no riders in front of him for much of the race and we didn’t expect that so the tyre cooled.
"Also, the pace was slow due to the track conditions. I think that was the reason for the infringement.”
Jerez was only the second time riders have been under pressure in a Sprint (after Valencia 2023) and underlines the difficulty teams face when looking into a pre-race 'crystal ball' and calculating starting tyre pressure.
Others were also unhappy that, despite real-time tyre pressure monitoring, the penalties were announced long after the rostrum ceremony - with Quartararo - had finished.
That also meant KTM wild-card Dani Pedrosa missed celebrating his first top-three since 2017 in front of his home fans.
Last season saw an official warning given for a first low-pressure offence, but that has been removed for 2024, alongside the introduction of much bigger post-race time penalties.
The penalty for being under pressure in a grand prix is now 16 seconds.
