‘Medium and hard working well’ for ominous looking Quartararo

Fabio Quartararo will start tomorrow’s MotoGP of Catalunya from pole after a dominating Saturday performance. 

The French rider was the only rider capable of achieving sub 1m 40s laps during the race simulation FP4 session. 

It wasn’t just one or two laps either, instead Quartararo completed seven laps in the 39s that would have been good enough for top spot before he took pole during qualifying. 

Speaking after securing his second MotoGP pole at the Barcelona circuit, the 22 year-old said: "Yeah the pace was great; medium and hard. And yeah qualifying was great, I did a great first run. 

"But actually my lap was not that perfect, you know. I thought I could improve a little bit more and on my second run I prepared really well the rear tyre, but I went on the yellow flag in sector three. 

"But the most important thing is that we are in the front row, P1! So happy to see the fans back and I think that it’s giving a boost for everyone."

The majority of Quartararo’s race simulation was done on the medium tyre, however, the factory Monster Energy Yamaha rider fitted the hard rear late on and was just as fast. 

He said ‘both are working good’, so much so that he is undecided on which to use, but if the warm-up is dry he will try evaluate the hard rear further.  

"Both are working good, but actually right now I don’t know which one to choose, the feeling is really similar for me and both lap times are really good," added Quartararo.  

"Last year I think almost everyone raced with the softs. Okay, tyres are different compared to last year, but the consistency is much better. 

"I feel like I was riding this morning with 24/25 laps on the tyre and making high 40s. With the medium is good and if tomorrow the warm-up is dry, I will try to make more laps with the hard to see if it works. 

"We know that the medium is doing race distance with a great lap times."