Quartararo ‘always a bit scared arriving in Austin’

Two weeks on from his first point-scoring ride as a MotoGP rider, class rookie Fabio Quartararo believes Austin represents the biggest examination yet of his offseason preparation for the demands of the premier class.

“When you arrive in Austin you are always a little bit scared,” admitted the Frenchman on Thursday, before stating his belief that the second half of Sunday’s 20-lap outing at the Circuit of the Americas will be more physically demanding than anything he has faced as a premier class rider.

“I made a big step physically, but you know when you arrive in Austin, you are always a little bit scared,” said the 19-year old. “More about the arms, but I think I made a really good job this winter, and also during the season.

“The most difficult will be from half race to the end. But we need to adapt. If we are fit in this race, we are fit in all the tracks.

“I think we did quite good training with Jack [Miller], with Marcel [Schrotter]. We have been working out a lot. And I think it's really good for me to train with riders. Also Jack has a lot of experience in MotoGP.

“But at home we train a lot, and I know what kind of training I need to do. So after this race, it will be good to know which muscles I need to work more, and which one are quite fit.

“For sure things are really good. We had a good race in Argentina. But it's a totally different story from there to here. Argentina is a smooth track, easy track, I think it's one of the easiest, and here is the hardest, I think: physically, riding.

“So we need to stay calm for this race. But I'm confident, we worked a lot on the bike, the team worked to keep me calm on the first FP1, FP2. And we will see tomorrow. But I'm really looking forward to ride a MotoGP bike on this track.

“It's not changing the riding style, it's just adapting my riding style to the fuel tank. I was thinking about the race, and also the rear brake, in the first part of the race I was using it really badly.

“When I realised that without the rear brake it was much better, then I realised that I lost a lot of time at the beginning of the race. Also, the first laps with Nakagami, I lost a lot, because I made a few mistakes which cost me to be able to keep the gap with him.

“But it's only our second race of the season, our first real start, starting with the people, you know you don't really have the width, so you can't brake normally. And there were a lot of people in front, so I went wide. But step by step, we will take a lot of experience for sure.”