Yamaha is developing a new, more powerful engine for the 2023 season after several years languishing at the bottom of the MotoGP standings.
Even though he has made progress, El Diablo has had difficulty overtaking at the Portuguese MotoGP. He finished 10th in the Sprint Race and 8th in the race.
Quartararo admits it is difficult to fight with his rivals on the 2023 Yamaha despite having a decent race pace. The Yamaha Factory Racing rider did not have good rear grip on the Algarve track.
Ahead of the Argentina GP, Quartararo said that Yamaha was at a loss to explain the current power problem and why the M1 often spun when accelerating.
“How to explain it, I don’t know, because we don’t know either,” he said. “But for sure, with the few changes we made to the bike this year, we have improved a lot, especially on the lap times.
“However, we have to use more power in the acceleration phase. We (can) use more power, but we can’t do a wheelie.
“It’s something we’re working on. But, to be honest, the problem is we couldn’t do a good qualifying round, don’t know why.
Read Also:
“I can’t explain everything, because I think it’s a bit more secret. But after all, it’s a problem especially with the manpower we still have, and (there’s also the fact that) we can’t use it the way we want, especially when we not at the limit of the engine, (when) we need more acceleration but we do a wheelie.
“These are the issues that really let us say that in qualifying, we couldn’t manage good lap times and in the race we couldn’t really overtake.”
Quartararo added that the engine was better than in 2022, but couldn’t hold up the slipstream when trailing the Ducati and Aprilia engines.
“At the moment, we are obviously slower than Aprilia and Ducati, but we still have to be calm, not think about it too much. Because nowadays it is very easy to look at these two brands.
“For now, I’m staying focused on us and trying to (unleash) our greatest potential.”
Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images