Fabio Quartararo endures sighting lap crash, Miller taxi, ‘hybrid’ bike at COTA MotoGP

Fabio Quartararo had already endured his fair share of drama even before riders began sprinting off Sunday’s COTA MotoGP grid.

The Monster Yamaha star suffered his first crash of the season when he was caught out by the damp conditions with slick tyres on the sighting lap to the grid.

"I don't understand why I crashed on the sighting lap. I was basically upright, the tarmac looked quite dry, and I wasn't even pushing, but I lost the front – it was a strange crash,” the Frenchman said.

“It was my first crash of the year, and the first one in a long time.”

But the mayhem was just beginning for the former world champion.

Initially struggling to restart his M1, Quartararo received assistance from Pramac’s Jack Miller before bumping his machine back into life.

However, he then faced a dilemma.

Team director Massimo Meregalli explained: "According to the regulations, if Fabio had entered pit lane [for repairs], he would have had to start from pit lane with a different tyre specification and would have been handed a ride-through penalty.

“So, we had to tell him to go to the starting grid, and we prepared the bike there, changing the set-up from dry to wet. But then the start got delayed.”

Quartararo had wet tyres fitted when the start delay was called, after almost half of the grid followed Marc Marquez in sprinting back to the pits for their dry bikes.

Yamaha then used the delay to try and frantically change Quartararo’s undamaged spare bike over to a dry setting.

“The first bike was damaged, so we had to start the race with the second bike, which hadn't been used by Fabio all weekend,” Meregalli continued.

“We didn't have the time to change this bike from wet to dry.

“Basically, Fabio raced with a hybrid bike: a mix of wet and dry. With the bike like that, we didn't know very well what was going to happen.

“On top of this. it seems that he received some unusual notification on his YZR-M1's dashboard, which led to him riding the race in low-power mode, and we need to understand why this alert occurred.”

All of which meant that Quartararo, who impressed with a season-best sixth place in the Sprint, crossed the line in tenth place.

“I was on rain tyres during the first starting grid procedure, and it was a mess. Then we had the delayed start,” Quartararo said.

“My first bike was damaged anyway, so I had to use my second bike, which had a different chassis and swingarm…

“We had an issue with the electronics unfortunately, with an alert about fuel from lap 4.

“In the end it was a mistake, but I had to change a lot of maps, and then the performance was not there.

“But, overall, we had a great weekend, especially the Sprint, and hopefully we'll have better luck at the next one."

Miller finished as the top Yamaha in fifth place with Quartararo’s team-mate Alex Rins in eleventh.