Fabio Quartararo “was ready to leave” Yamaha MotoGP team amid struggles
The 2021 world champion reveals he was close to a Yamaha exit for 2025
Fabio Quartararo says he “was ready to leave” Yamaha at the end of the 2024 MotoGP season due to the Japanese brand’s dip in form.
The French rider made his MotoGP debut with Yamaha in 2019 at Petronas SRT before moving to its factory team in 2021, when he won the title.
Quartararo then went from battling for a second championship in 2022 to not even winning a race in 2023, while Yamaha is yet to score a podium this season - with a third in the Jerez sprint stripped from the Frenchman over a tyre pressure penalty.
The 2021 world champion was a key figure in the 2025 rider market, with the Frenchman seriously considering an offer from Aprilia before accepting a big money two-year deal to remain at Yamaha.
In a YouTube interview with ‘Legend’, Quartararo revealed: “Yamaha is a legendary team.
“My dream, when I was little, was to go there because Valentino Rossi was there.
“I was ready to leave this brand; even though it was my dream team, I felt ready to leave.
“And Yamaha made some very big changes. They have made a big investment in the project, hiring a lot of new engineers .
“Even for the brand, for Yamaha, it is not good to be so far behind in its market.
“Unfortunately, you can't get back to the top in [a few] weeks or months; I think it's more like years.
“That's what made me take the decision to stay at Yamaha, seeing meetings with people who came from other brands, who were working on very big projects .
“That's what made me take the step of renewing with Yamaha for the next two years.”
The arrival of Max Bartolini from Ducati as technical director at Yamaha was a major factor in Quartararo remaining with the Japanese marque.
Over the course of the 2024 campaign, Yamaha has utilised its concession benefits to conduct numerous in-season tests and introduce a raft of new items - stepping away from the more cautious approach it has had previously.
That is now extending as far as Yamaha ditching its inline-four engine philosophy for a V4 for 2025.
While there has been slow progress for Yamaha in 2024, Quartararo admits the Japanese marque’s decline in form since 2022 did take a toll on him.
“I've had problems with the bike and also mental problems, I think,” he added.
“In the end, when you spend four years fighting for the title and one year you finish tenth, it's strange.
“It even makes you doubt yourself, thinking, 'is it me, what's happening?’
“In the last two years, we haven't improved at all, and the others have made a big step forward.
“At the moment, we're still behind, but I think I've learned a lot about staying calm and above all [trying] to make the bike evolve in the best way possible.
“But it's true that mentally it wasn't easy.”
