Quartararo: I was obsessed with 1st in every session

MotoGP's newest race winner, Fabio Quartararo, says he is no longer 'obsessed' with being fastest in every session.

The Petronas Yamaha star frequently topped the timesheets during practice and qualifying during his rookie campaign, but was ultimately denied a race victory.

The Frenchman returned in 2020 with a slower-burning approach, being 15th overall on the opening day of last weekend's Spanish season opener, then moving to the top in FP3, claiming pole position and finally the race win.

Quartararo will hope that pattern is repeated after being 14th overall at the start of this weekend's second Jerez event.

"Last year I was too obsessed with finishing first in each session," Quartararo said. "Last weekend was the same in FP1 and FP2. On Friday we were 15th, today we were 14th but we only used two tyres and this was the important thing for us, to say we worked for the race.

"Finally it’s great. You need to change your way of thinking because it’s never great to finish [so far back] in the overall standings, but you know the potential is there. We always went out with a full fuel tank, so it’s OK.

"We know that the setting from last Sunday is really good. So today we have been taking FP1 and 2 like a test for some electronic settings on the bike.

"It was important to do this, to know if we can improve even more. We found some good solutions, but also some things we need to take out and be different.

"Tomorrow we’ll start to think a bit more about the time attack and make some last set-up changes in FP4 for the race. But I’m feeling strong and ready to go."

One clear change from last Sunday was the time spent on the medium rear tyre, rather than the race-winning soft.

"Today was the time to try it. I tried it with the medium front last week and I was not feeling good with the medium front. It’s something we’ll need to do in FP4, to compare both tyres and see which ones we use for the race. Both have positives but the pace today with the medium was really great."

Quartararo also worked on getting more out of the new Yamaha holeshot device after a poor getaway on Sunday.

"Actually in FP1, 2, 3 and 4 last weekend I did great starts with the holeshot and then in the race I did my worst start in all the weekend - by far! But already this morning we did one much better than the race. We know that we are using quite well the holeshot device."