Last season, the French rider narrowly missed out on the world title despite making up for the shortcomings of his Yamaha, losing out to Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia at the final round in Valencia.
It took until Bagnaia and Ducati’s engineers unlocked the full potential of the Desmosedici GP22 to turn it into the almost perfect prototype, which enabled the Turin native to overhaul a 91-point deficit to Quartararo, as he completed the greatest comeback in MotoGP history.
Yamaha focused on improving the top speed of its M1 going into 2023 - its main weakness compared to Ducati - and, after the first winter tests, it gave the team optimism in that area. But, as this season began, it became clear it was a false dawn and had compromised the overall Yamaha package.
In addition to gaining less top speed than targeted, the M1 lost the agility that had always characterised Yamaha’s efforts and was its major strength against its rivals.
The results so far in 2023 have been bleak and, after nine rounds, Quartararo is 11th in the standings followed by team-mate Franco Morbidelli in 12th. Between them they have achieved just one grand prix podium, which Quartararo secured with third place at the Americas GP, along with a third place in the Dutch GP sprint race.
After the summer break, there had been hopes of a turnaround but at Silverstone the Yamaha riders were the lowest points finishers.
With Morbidelli ditched in favour of bringing in Alex Rins, who will join the Spaniard in the Yamaha garage in 2025 remains to be seen. Quartararo’s current deal runs until the end of 2024, one he is unlikely to break due to a lack of alternative options, but beyond that depends on what the French rider feels Yamaha can produce.
Source: Autosport