The 2021 world champion endured a difficult day at Silverstone on Friday, finishing 10th in first practice before ending up 11th in the second session to narrowly miss out on progressing directly into Q2.
Quartararo currently sits ninth in the standings after eight rounds, with a best result of third in the United States Grand Prix and in the Assen sprint race.
Speaking after Friday's track running, the Frenchman said he had “not good balance” and was struggling to generate grip on his M1.
He explained that while he felt his riding “was quite okay", he struggled in the final chicane and overall "was not feeling super great".
“In all the other corners I felt I was riding well, but lap time was super far off what we expect so I would say the balance is pretty bad,” he added.
Quartararo was fastest in FP2 last year but fell to 11th this year, 0.6s slower than last year’s time.
Asked if he knew why, he said: “No, this is the problem. We don’t know why, basically whatever I’m doing on the bike, everything is more sensitive, I’m doing much more mistakes.
“But I’m just trying to push to the maximum and my feeling is that I’m riding one second faster than last year but I’m one second slower.
“This is what makes me feel really frustrated, because it’s not what I want and this is something that is the most difficult mentally to not know why we are that slow.”
Source: Autosport