Fabio Quartararo explains one-word dashboard message “that makes me remember”

The first day of the official Sepang MotoGP test was the third day of riding in Malaysia for Fabio Quartararo, who is running a one-word message in his cockpit as a reminder.

Quartararo was spotted having the word ‘smooth’ in his rider cockpit on the opening day in Sepang, something he said was a part of a conscious effort to change his riding style.

“It was last year that –  especially when we started to work on the electronics, I will say from Thailand – I clearly see the Ducati riding one way and I wanted to change completely the electronics, myself,” Quartararo said.

“My instinct [when I go] on the track is to push like hell and to really maximise all the time the bike.

“But sometimes feeling slower makes you faster, so this I always have on my dashboard, the word ‘smooth’, that makes me remember always to keep calm on the bike.”

Overall, Quartararo was positive about his first day of the official test.

“Basically it was just we tested some electronics today, a few settings that we tested a lot during the Shakedown, but it was just a reconfirmation,” he said.

“It was a good day for us, especially for the engineers to know a little bit more the direction we have to go.”

Quartararo added: “I don’t want to be too positive from the beginning. I think that we work in a good way.

“It’s only the first day of the test and we have to see also the others.

“We can see already many of them went super-fast on the first day, [but] it’s already three days that we are here.

“So, we have to be neutral and try to work well and we will see where we are in Thailand.”