‘The question is, can we finish the race?’

Quartararo could only muster a 12th-place finish in the best of the two factory Yamahas in Saturday’s half-distance race at the Losail International Circuit, finishing almost 13 seconds off the lead in what was only an 11-lap contest.

Having already suffered all weekend with a lack of pace in low-grip conditions, the Frenchman also reported heavy degradation on his Michelin rubber in the closing stages of the sprint, which led to him losing a place to VR46 Ducati’s Marco Bezzecchi on the final lap.

While the result didn’t surprise the 2021 champion as he had tempered his expectations heading into the new season, he described the issues with tyre wear at Losail as “really strange”.

“In terms of position I was not expecting better because it is the pace we had during the test, it is the pace that we had during the weekend,” he said. “But the way we finished was really, really strange.

“It’s not that I’m negative, but when you see that you have such a big degradation on the sprint and that you have no other choice of rear tyre for the race, honestly the question isn’t even the position, it’s ‘Can we finish the race?’ It was really starting to get complicated.”

Quartararo stuck with the medium tyre on both the front and rear of his M1, the same compound he will again select in the full 22-lap race on Sunday.

Having not gone aggressive with his choice of rubber, the Yamaha rider was puzzled as to why he suffered such heavy degradation over the course of the sprint.

“In the test, we had a little drop,” he explained. “I did a few laps [that were] much faster and my sprint race simulation was maybe six or seven seconds faster than today. 

“We know that in the conditions of the test the grip is much higher and it is a benefit for us, but the drop we had today we never really had it, especially in the sprint race. 

“It’s 11 laps only. If I was with the soft compound I could understand, but it was the race compound and we had many problems.”

Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Quartararo had no logical explanation for his issues on Saturday, saying the extent of the tyre drop-off can’t be entirely down to a change in track conditions compared to the Qatar pre-season test.

“It’s normal that during the test there is always more rubber on the track. Because…