Fabio Quartararo gets new engine for Malaysia MotoGP: ‘It was clearly better’

Fabio Quartararo will have another new engine to use at the MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix, which he says was “clearly, clearly better” when it was tested.

Running under concession rules, Yamaha has been relentless in its development of its M1 in 2024, with a raft of new major parts being brought to races across the season.

For this weekend’s Malaysian GP, Quartararo will have a new engine to race which looks like it will give him some more power.

“It’s difficult to expect something now when you arrive to a track,” he told media, including Crash.net, on Thursday at Sepang.

“In the past, we used to know more or less: ‘this one is a good one, this one not so good’.

“But now we have no idea, and the thing is we have new things to try this weekend. We have a new engine.

“From my side I want to test more different things on the electronics. It’s been for a long time that I’ve wanted to try something different, also on my riding style.

“But I have to try something, the bike must give me different things. So, we will make quite a big change on the electronics.

“Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s bad - I don’t know. But at least, I think, that we are not in a position to think about one specific result and try something big that can maybe be a big help for us.”

He added: “So, I’ve tested it, but only for a few laps and I had an issue on the electronics and it was not working properly.

“Alex [Rins] tested and looks like it was clearly, clearly better. My feeling was not bad also.

“Normally it would be more powerful because also Alex and I have different engines, and my one was always lower on the power.

“That was the one I liked the most, so hopefully this one is more powerful.

“To be honest, when I tested it I didn’t really feel anything much different because we had an issue on the electronics.

“And we had many, many things to test. So, I don’t really remember but it looks like it gives us more power and you will see also from the outside we bring one new exhaust… well, ‘new’.

“We put on, we take off, we put on, we take off. So, this is what we will use for the weekend.”

Quartararo wasn’t sure how many engines he has tried this season, but believes it’s “four or five” now.

The 2021 world champion showed good speed in last week’s Thai GP, in which he qualified sixth and had strong pace in the grand prix despite being knocked off by Franco Morbidelli early on.

While top results have still eluded Yamaha in 2024, Quartararo says every race of the current flyaway portion of the calendar has turned up positive signs.

“To be honest, in all of the Asian tour and the last races, the result was not super, super good but we always had some positives,” he said.

“Like in Thailand, qualifying P6, the pace was really good, the wet was better.

“In Australia we struggled to warm the tyres but the pace at the end was great.

“So, in every race we have something quite positive to take. So, I think we made some steps.

“But, like I said, we’re still slow and the other ones are making steps. So, we have to make bigger ones to be closer to the others.”