Fabio Quartararo hoping for 2024 trend to continue after achieving Thai MotoGP “goal”

Fabio Quartararo started the 2025 MotoGP season in positive fashion by finishing Practice for the season opening Thai Grand Prix inside the top-10, and therefore qualifying for Q2 without the need to go through Q1 on Saturday.

Quartararo was eighth-fastest on Friday, less than half-a-second behind Marc Marquez who was fastest on the factory Ducati.

While Marquez and Ducati may remain out of reach for the 2021 World Champion and the Monster Energy Yamaha team at the moment, Quartararo was pleased to make it into Q2 from Practice and avoid Q1 in Thailand, something that was a rarity for him and Yamaha in 2024.

Fabio Quartararo pleased after Thai MotoGP practice

“But the goal was to be in the Q2, we are, and also only 0.2 seconds from P3," he said.

Quartararo said that Yamaha’s progress over the winter meant that being in Q2 is now the target for every Friday afternoon Practice session.

“Already it was the goal last year, the end of the season was quite great, we were almost everywhere in the Q2,” he said.

“But it’s much better to be in Q2 from Friday, and this is the thing that is more difficult because the track is changing day-by-day, and usually when we are in Q2 from Friday we always improve a little bit on Saturday.

“So, hopefully it will be the same tomorrow.”

The French rider added that he had an improved front feeling in practice for the Grand Prix compared to the test two weeks ago, where he had struggled with the front tyre.

“[I had] a little bit better feeling than the test on the front – still not really comfortable,” Quartararo said.

He added: “We didn’t change anything. But with this soft [compound front tyre] today it was feeling a little bit better.

“Maybe the tyres from the test were here for quite a long time and gave a strange feeling.

“But today the soft was better, the hard was feeling really similar to the test, so it’s not going to be super-easy because our bike is really making the time with the front and we are not really able to do it. So, let’s see, but I think we made a good job.”