Quartararo critical of “dangerous” Mugello MotoGP qualifying

Qualifying was run under spots of rain as thunder rumbled around the Mugello circuit on Saturday afternoon, with Q1 initially beginning on wet tyres before a switch to slicks despite marshals still waving rain flags.

The Q2 pole shootout session was ultimately completed on slick tyres, with Gresini rookie Fabio Di Giannantonio using his knowledge of the iffy conditions in Q1 to snatch a shock maiden pole.

Only one crash happened in qualifying, when Marc Marquez – who announced on Saturday that he Mugello will be his last race for the foreseeable future owing to further surgery on his right arm – was caught out in the rain spots at the start of Q2, with the session needing to be red-flagged after his bike caught fire.

Quartararo feels the fast and flowing nature of the Mugello circuit should have prompted Race Direction to delay the start to qualifying to allow conditions to become safer.

“This afternoon, I think the conditions were really dangerous,” the Yamaha rider, who will start Sunday’s race from sixth, said.

“It was really not a good decision to do what we did. It’s not normal to go on the track, the fastest track ever, when you don’t know if you’re going with the rain [tyre], going with the slick, you don’t know what to expect.

“Ok, we say we go with the slick and when it starts to rain you want to go with the slick [before it gets too wet].

“But in this track, we cannot wait for something to happen to postpone or to wait.

“So, for me it was not a good decision to go onto the track with the conditions that we had.

“In this track, that is such a long track, it can be wet there, dry here, and you start here and it’s dry, but then you go to one place, when you go to Turn 8 or Turn 9, the corners where you arrive close to 100km/h or more, and you flick in super-fast and you don’t know the conditions, it’s not a great feeling.”

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