Daniel Ricciardo on Fabio Quartararo: “His scars… a different breed to us”
"The bikes guys are just different. His mentality, his battle scars…"
Daniel Ricciardo insists MotoGP riders are “a different breed” after hearing how Fabio Quartararo overcame injury.
F1 driver Ricciardo met his friend, Yamaha MotoGP rider Quartararo, last September after undergoing surgery on a broken hand.
Quartararo’s reaction? To grab Ricciardo’s hand and twist it, to prove the injury was not insurmountable.
Quartararo told Fox Sports Australia: “He had the surgery and broke only the metacarpal, but he was acting like he was totally blocked from the shoulder and I asked him ‘how much have you broken?’
“I thinking ‘maybe don’t move your hand, but at least move your arm!’
“I was telling him ‘move this hand so you can be ready to come back as soon as possible’ so I had to grab it and make him use it. He was laughing so bad!”
Ricciardo said: “He gave me so much s**t that night about not being able to move my hand at dinner, he was saying I should be able to race the next weekend.
“I don’t think he knew fully how bad the break was, but he made me feel like I was so pathetic…
“He reckons the way I was holding my hand like my entire arm was broken… he was definitely taking the p*** out of me.
“Afterwards he told me he’d once pulled a screw out of his skin from some operation he’d had, just ripped it out of the tip of his finger…
“Seriously, the bikes guys are just different. His mentality, his battle scars… they’re a different breed to us.”
Quartararo said: “It’s true that with motorcycles, we are more used to breaking fingers or some other things.
“But for one month he was such a baby, he was scared of using it.
“Not all Formula One drivers are soft, but I think he is!”
Ricciardo and Quartararo struck up a friendship in 2019.
Quartararo, in his rookie year, became the youngest rider ever to earn pole position at Jerez. But his Yamaha broke down, ending his victory dream.
Ricciardo offered his sympathy.
“I remember Daniel messaging me saying ‘stay strong, you were so fast’”, Quartararo said.
“I was ‘whoa, this is a big moment of my career’.”
The next week for the F1 Spanish Grand Prix, Quartararo visited his new pal and they have stayed in touch ever since.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
