Fabio Quartararo backed up his Spanish MotoGP performance by being Marc Marquez’s nearest challenger during Friday practice for his home round at Le Mans.
The Monster Yamaha rider, who secured his first pole and GP podium since 2023 at Jerez, delighted the passionate French crowd by finishing just 0.177s adrift of Marquez’s new lap record.
Quartararo’s impressive early form puts him on course to again challenge for the top three in Saturday’s qualifying and Sprint race.
However, he’s also mindful of his costly early Sprint crash last time at Jerez and insists he’ll adopt a calmer approach this weekend.
“I mean, it was like having a dog at home for two years and you release it, because he’s at the front again. And I was totally crazy!” Quartararo told MotoGP.com, when asked if he’ll be going ‘all in’ again during Saturday’s Sprint.
“But now I’ve made a few laps in the lead in Jerez and we’re up front again here, so I will make like a normal Sprint – pushing to the maximum but not doing some stupid things.”
Quartararo feels one of the keys to his recent resurgence lies in focusing session by session rather than looking too far ahead.
“I want to take it quite slowly. Other people will improve tomorrow and we will have to improve,” said Quartararo.
“The pace is looking great today but tomorrow is another day. Hopefully we can make a step but we take it day by day. I don’t want to look already for Saturday or Sunday but just try to maximise our performance in every session.”
The former world champion also provided positive feedback on the new Yamaha engine trialled during the recent Jerez test. However he expects it to have more impact on faster circuits such as the upcoming Silverstone and Aragon rounds.
“It’s a little bit better. Unfortunately it’s not a huge step, but I think and I hope we will feel it more at tracks where the straight will be longer, like Silverstone or Aragon,” he said.
“But in general it was a good day and the fans are really here to support us.”
Despite his optimism for Le Mans, Quartararo remains realistic about Yamaha’s performance at other tracks with lower grip levels.
“These [have been] two tracks where the tyre consumption and the grip is really high,” he said. “We will arrive to tracks like Aragon where the grip is low and we will go a little bit backwards, being realistic.
“But we have to take the opportunities when we have the performance of the bike, we need to be at our 100%.”
Quartararo’s strong pace on Friday was backed up by a sixth place for Pramac’s Jack Miller. Meanwhile team-mate Alex Rins endured a more difficult day, including a morning crash, on his way to 17th.
