Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP |News details:Quartararo Finishes Within the Points in Portuguese GP Sprint

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The Saturday at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve was filled with ups and downs for Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP's Fabio Quartararo and Álex Rins. The duo qualified in P9 and P11 respectively for the 12-lap Sprint. Quartararo made the calculated decision to race with the medium rear tyre. It caused a slight disadvantage at the start but ultimately helped him finish the short dash in ninth place and collect one point. Rins, on the other hand, gained positions in the opening corners, but a crash on lap 3 ended his contest prematurely.

Portimao (Portugal), 23rd March 2024

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP's Fabio Quartararo put in a calculated ride in the Grande Prémio de Portugal Sprint to take ninth place and score one point. Álex Rins was engaged in a battle with several rivals in the opening laps, but a crash on lap 3 halted his progress.

Quartararo started from P9 but found himself in the busy mid-pack and ultimately settled in 10th place after the opening stages. Still getting heat in his medium rear tyre, he was relegated to 11th when Pedro Acosta put in an overtake on lap 2, but El Diablo wouldn't be outside the points for long. Various crashes throughout the Sprint showed just how tricky the Algarve track is when riding on the absolute limit. With multiple riders in pursuit, the Frenchman managed to stand his ground and, though unable to close in on the top eight riders, he collected his first Sprint point of the season crossing the finish line in ninth place, 7.501s from first.

Rins started the 12-lap Sprint from P11 and made up some positions on the opening lap, muscling himself into eighth place. He then battled with Aleix Espargaró and had to let him pass. The Yamaha man was keen to make up ground, but a crash in the first sector of lap 3 ended his Sprint early. Rins was quickly back on his feet and is looking forward to a rematch tomorrow.

Today's results see Quartararo keep his 11th place in the overall standings with 6 points. Rins is now in 20th place as he is yet to score points. The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP team are 8th in the team championship, and Yamaha is in 4th position in the constructor’s championship.

Tomorrow the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP teammates will be back in action for Warm Up from 9:40 - 9:50 GMT +0, followed by the Race, starting at 14:00.

Massimo Meregalli

Team Director

It was a tricky Saturday overall. Thanks to the work we did on the Friday, we had both our riders in Q2, but in the end we did not capitalise on it. In FP2, we tried the soft rear tyre, but we had a bigger tyre drop than the others, so Fabio had to go with the medium in the Sprint. We were on a different tyre specification than the majority of the rider field, and it was a disadvantage, but it was a calculated decision: we opted for consistency rather than short-lived optimal performance. His Sprint, all in all, was not bad. He was able to gather good information for tomorrow's Race and also scored one point. Unfortunately, there’s not much to say about Álex's Sprint apart from that he had a good start from P11 and was making up ground. It was a shame he crashed on lap 3. Thankfully he's perfectly OK, so he can have a do-over tomorrow.

Fabio Quartararo

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider

Basically, I expected today's Sprint to play out like this. We were on the medium rear because we had a quite bad feeling with the soft. The drop of the soft rear tyre is quite big, so I preferred to race with the medium rear today and suffer a bit in the opening laps – because warming up that tyre is quite difficult – before stepping up the pace. It was quite a good Sprint for me. I think it's been a while since I finished within 8s from the front in a Sprint, especially while on a different tyre. It was great to see the difference with the other bikes: this is good information for us. We are gaining experience, and we already know our tyre choice for tomorrow: hard front, medium rear. I feel quite good. Hopefully we can make a great Race tomorrow. I think our pace is not too bad with the medium. You can't feel a big improvement in just two GPs, but if we compare our way of working to the first test in Malaysia, we are improving. But there is still a lot of work to do to be back where we want to be.

Álex Rins

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider

Honestly, I don't know why I crashed. I didn't get any warning signs throughout this weekend in that corner, and we checked the data, and I didn't do anything strange. So, for sure, we will analyse this further, because we don't understand what happened exactly. But, anyway, we did a great start. For sure, it was a big shame that our Sprint ended after the second lap, but we are working. I'm doing great, so let's see what we can do tomorrow.