Yamaha “not magicians” as it’s left “not happy” after Qatar MotoGP round

Fabio Quartararo was the leading Yamaha in last Sunday’s Qatar GP down in 11th and 17.701 seconds off race winner Francesco Bagnaia on the factory Ducati.

Team-mate Alex Rins also struggled, missing the points in 16th on his debut for the Japanese marque.

This led to 2021 world champion Quartararo stating that Yamaha is “further than ever” from its European rivals, despite being one of only two manufacturers with full concession benefits at its disposal.

Speaking to Canal+ after the race, Meregalli shared Quartararo’s frustrations and praised the Frenchman’s efforts in the grand prix.

“Fabio did what he could for the moment,” Meregalli said. “We are realistic. We saw what we could do here two weeks ago, during the tests, when we did the race simulation. We already saw the level.

“Of course we are not happy, we are realistic and objective. We have listed what we have to do, but it takes time.

“We are making progress, we have improved top speed, aerodynamics, and we have to achieve it to continue progressing. We have a lot of work to do.

“I am disappointed, yes, but satisfied because we have done what we could.

“We have collected data, we progressed after the sprint race, because we had a degradation problem. It was still happening on Sunday, but less so. 

“We have changed things, now we really know what we want to do, where we want to go, but it takes time.

“We are not magicians. We know what needs to be done, and it takes time to get there.”

Meregalli also noted that Quartararo’s approach to racing has now changed as he “now works with the objective of progressing”.

“Quartararo’s work this weekend, even if it is only the first, has been good,” the team director added.

“It is a different way of working. A few years ago he was only trying to win, now he works with the objective of progressing, collecting all possible information and do tests.

“We already tried new things in Mugello, we will do it again in Portimao. The programme is quite tight and we will have to cover as much as possible.”