Quartararo surprised by pole, shrugs off ‘too early’ title talk
Fabio Quartararo is well placed to follow up his maiden MotoGP win in Jerez with a second just a week later at the same circuit after he secured pole position for the Andalucia MotoGP.
Though the result was partially fortuitous after Maverick Vinales had a faster time cancelled for a track limits infringement, it is now two poles on the bounce for the Frenchman as a growing number of people put their weight behind his burgeoning title bid.
Admitting to being surprised to land the top spot having not had the same positive feeling in the session, he is feeling confident about doubling up for the Petronas SRT Yamaha team.
“I never expected it. I thought maybe it would be front row so when I found it was pole I was so happy because I wasn’t feeling so good in qualifying. A strange feeling in FP4, I have been trying different rear tyres. In qualifying the front was pushing and there wasn’t so much grip from the rear, so I didn’t expect pole position.
“We will see from the first lap, we need to be smart, we have a really good pace but we need to be careful, we know the grip is always strange after Moto2 and we will try to make our best like always.”
With hot title favourite Marc Marquez set for a second non-score after withdrawing from the Andalucia MotoGP with injury, a second win would see Quartararo open up a sizeable 50 point margin over the Spaniard with potentially as few as 11 races to go.
Even so, Quartararo says Marquez’s exemplary record in 2019 demonstrates you can never rule him out even with a large margin for error.
“It isn’t easy to think [in terms of] the championship because tomorrow is only our second race, so it’s an advantage when a person has two non-scores, especially in this short championship but if you look at Marc’s results, apart from Austin the worst result was a second place. It depends how he comes back, but we don’t need to think about the championship and to enjoy. One day we will think about the championship but it is not the moment yet.”
