Fabio Quartararo confident Yamaha will be quicker at Aragon than 2019

Fabio Quartararo is quietly confident of a ‘good race’ in the Aragon MotoGP - and by extension the following Teruel MotoGP at the same circuit - because he believes the 2020 Yamaha is better equipped to perform well.

Quartararo carries a 10 point lead into the Round 10 at Motorland Aragon, a venue he finished fifth last season but was visibly down on power compared with his rivals.

With the Yamaha M1 still lacking in top speed this year, it is feared this could prove problematic come race day, even if the more technical section of the venue should suit the bike.

However, the Petronas SRT rider is bullish about his chances this season, saying the M1 should perform better here this year.

“I think the potential of the 2020 Yamaha suits Aragon better than last year’s bike so I expect to be better than last year. We have great potential, I think in this crazy year anything can happen, so I feel confident and great on the bike. I feel strong and I will do my best to be as fast as possible.”

Quartararo comes to Spain on the back of an educational weekend in Le Mans, where a potential fourth win of the year went begging when a downpour pre-race forced him to make his race debut in wet conditions.

Though ninth wasn’t reflective of his pace as it would have been in the dry necessarily, Quartararo refused to be downbeat by the circumstances out of his control.

“The Saturday was really good because we had a great pace FP3 and FP4, in qualifying we were super fast so I felt great and unfortunately just before the start the race came. I was a little bit nervous because in FP1 I didn’t feel great on the bike and we decided to go for a different bike, so we made a risk, but it was great. 

“We struggled to warm up the rear tyre and have great confidence, but in general we could we didn’t have a bad race in those conditions. We learned a lot to see where we can improve on the bike, but I am happy with my race.”