Quartararo: Track surface a joke, not a MotoGP track for me
Fabio Quartararo has labelled the current COTA track surface ‘a joke’ after day one of the American MotoGP.
The championship leader managed to finish third fastest in FP2 after being down in 15th during a wet FP1.
However, his top three position overall did little to please him, as Quartararo instead called for action to be taken regarding the amount of bumps in dangerous places.
Speaking in his media debrief about the track condition, Quartararo added: "It’s more or less a track that I used to race, to train with the motocross bike. But yeah, it’s much faster with the MotoGP bike so it’s really bad.
"We talked (with safety commission) two years ago and said they need to resurface, but now it’s even worse. It’s just acceptable to race. I don’t know what to say. It is a joke.
"I mean the track is not a MotoGP track for me. For me it is a track to train. To make a race here - for one lap it is okay, but 20 laps you will see that for me there will be some bad moments. They told me that they see a lot of bikes are shaking in turn 10.
"If there are bumps in turns one, 11, 12, it’s okay because they are slow corners, but turns two, three and ten it's the worst corners ever that you can have bumps."
In terms of lap times and pace, day one was dominated by Marc Marquez and Jack Miller, although many other Ducati’s looked strong.
Asked if being the lone Yamaha makes him worried about the race, especially because of the long straights and their impressive performance in the fast corners, Quartararo said: "At the end, Jack [Miller] always goes fast here. But my main rider to look at is not him so I’m also happy if he’s there in the mix.
"For me it’s good and yeah let’s see. I know I’m the only Yamaha in the top, but the bike is going quite well.
"We are missing some things to improve but I think we are in good shape. I try to make the difference but it is difficult."
