Fifth slips away as Fabio Quartararo runs out of fuel: “Still super happy”

Fabio Quartararo came within one corner of achieving his goal of a season-best top-six finish in Sunday’s Emilia Romagna MotoGP at Misano.

But the Monster Yamaha rider was cruelly denied of fifth place when he ran out of fuel on the exit of the penultimate corner.

Franco Morbidelli and Maverick Vinales both overtook the powerless Frenchman as he rolled to the line, leaving Quartararo seventh at the flag, which still equalled his best Sunday finish of the year.

“Already in the second-to-last corner, I had no more fuel left. I tried to do whatever I could, but I'm still super happy about how the race went. This is by far one of the best GPs we've had this year,” said Quartararo, who had been successfully holding former team-mate Morbidelli at bay on the Ducati GP24.

“Now we will see what kind of results we can get at the overseas races. If we do a similar kind of weekend in Indonesia, I think it's a big step forward for us. Lately, when I'm riding, I'm feeling much better. I think that we can be happy with the work we've done in the last few weeks.”

Quartararo finished 20.922s from race winner Enea Bastianini but 12-seconds clear of the next best Japanese bike of Honda’s Joan Mir, in eleventh.

Free practice for the Indonesian Grand Prix starts on Friday, when Quartararo's team-mate Alex Rins hopes to be back on track after withdrawing from the Emilia Romagna round due to sickness.