Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP |News details:Quartararo Secures Q2 Placement in Americas GP Friday Sessions

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Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP’s Fabio Quartararo got his mojo back in Austin, Texas. He showed solid rhythm and wrapped up the day in 7th place in the combined P1+P2 timesheets, good for a place in tomorrow’s Q2. Franco Morbidelli used the Friday practice sessions to try and replicate the feeling he had in Argentina two weeks prior but ended the day in 16th position and will have to take part in Q1.

Austin (USA), 14th April 2023

Today the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team kicked off proceedings at the Grand Prix of The Americas event, diving straight into the action. Fabio Quartararo secured second position in P1 and followed it up with 7th place in P2 and in the combined P1+P2 standings. Franco Morbidelli was determined to fight for a top-10 spot as well but ended the day in 16th place.

With rain predicted for the afternoon, the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team got a wriggle on in the 45-minute morning practice session.

Quartararo had a strong start to the Texas round and soon featured inside the top 3. In perfect riding conditions, the Yamaha man focused on tweaking his bike’s set-up before putting it to the test. He provisionally topped P1 twice but ultimately finished in second place, 0.150s from first, thanks to his 2’03.400s best time.

The Frenchman was happy to find the afternoon session dry so he could continue his work from the morning. He dedicated a large chunk of time to preparing for tomorrow’s Sprint and Sunday’s Race before the usual time-attack end of the session. He clocked a 2’02.721s on lap 19/20, earning himself seventh place in the P2 and combined results, 0.543s off today’s top position, to go directly into Q2.

Morbidelli was greatly looking forward to riding in Austin, and was making progress in the morning session, working on his bike’s set-up. He had to get to work, because soon it was time to push. A 2’04.342s best lap put the Italian in 12th place, 0.138s from the top 10 he was aiming for.

Morbido had another go at setting a hot lap in the afternoon as the 60-minute session remained fully dry. He wrapped up the first day of the Americas GP weekend with a best time of 2’03.443s that put him in 16th place in the P2 and the combined practice results, 1.265s from first, so he will have to take part in tomorrow’s Q1.

Massimo Meregalli

Team Director

We have mixed results again. Starting with the positives: Fabio is back in his element. He showed a quite strong pace today in both P1 and P2. Our goal for the Friday was to be inside the top 10, no matter what, to have the best chances for qualifying tomorrow, and we achieved that for 50%. Franky finds himself in the opposite scenario. He didn’t have the good feeling here that he had in Argentina. He will have to take part in Q1 tomorrow, so we need to work hard to find a time improvement. The forecasts for tomorrow are good, so we will use FP3 to fine-tune and get ready for Qualifying and the Sprint.

Fabio Quartararo

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider

The time attack was tricky for me. I wanted to push way too much. I hope we can find a solution for that tomorrow. I'm over-riding when we put in the soft tyre. I need to try to be calmer. I need to ride in the same way, but make sure to actually get the benefit of the soft tyre during qualifying.

Franco Morbidelli

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider

It was a medium difficult day. We improved from the morning to the afternoon, and that is positive. We were greedy for the time attack. We saw we had an improvement in the last run before the time attack, and we went even further in that direction. But the first time attack was average and in the second one I made two big mistakes as I was too much on the limit. Because of that, I couldn't improve on the first time attack or set an interesting lap time. Pace-wise we are not there yet. It will be interesting to see if we can close the gap tomorrow. Let's see.