Neil Morrison | December 17, 2021
Fabio Quartararo has reinvented himself once again, this time as the thinking rider. It’s served him well, winning him the MotoGP World Championship in just his third attempt. He told Cycle News how he did it.
By Neil Morrison | Photography by Gold & Goose
When assessing the ups and downs of Fabio Quartararo’s career, perhaps 2021 shouldn’t have come as a surprise. This wasn’t the first time the Frenchman had undergone something of a transformation. From the most hyped rookie in Moto3 history, he then drifted into years of wilderness, in danger of becoming an example of placing too much expectation on a young talent too soon.
From 2018 to ’19 he went through a similar metamorphosis. From a one-time winner and very occasional threat in Moto2, Quartararo was reborn as Marc Marquez’s chief rival in MotoGP, amassing seven podiums for a satellite team, formed only at the beginning of that year, across one of the more impressive rookie seasons in memory.
And so, 2021 has seen further wholesale changes to the rider once labelled “The Next Marquez” when he was just 15 years of age. An occasionally petulant and often erratic performer who imploded when leading last year’s championship with five races to play, Quartararo has looked every bit the finished article from his early forays in Yamaha’s factory team—all in the space of one winter.
Quartararo has single-handedly flown the flag for Yamaha all year long, fighting his way through the hoard of fast Ducatis. He has been quick everywhere, with the exception of Aragon. Five wins were each achieved in swashbuckling style. But it was the way he bounced back from crushing disappointments—the arm pump during the Spanish GP, “zippergate” a month later in Barcelona—had the hallmarks of a champion. And on those difficult days, he attacked the occasion with relish.
On the back of his success at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in October, Quartararo not only has the distinction of becoming France’s first-ever premier class champion in 72 years; he’s the sixth youngest of all time at just 22 years and 187 days (and just look at the names ahead of him on that list to see the company he holds: Marquez, Spencer, Stoner, Hailwood, Surtees). “He was the one who deserved this title the most,” chief rival Francesco Bagnaia conceded. A point with which each of his MotoGP adversaries likely agrees.
He managed an average of 15.4 points per race this year—more than seven up of his 2020 average of 9.0, a massive upswing. So how did Quartararo manage this particular turnaround?
Fighting on the limit
To listen to the 22-year-old, it all sounds fairly simple. “The experience I took from 2020 helped me a lot to stay more consistent than usual,” he told Cycle News. “Also, the bike improved. I improved. I have more experience, so it helps a lot. I think it’s a matter also of not giving up. Last year I was like, ‘Okay, this isn’t the best season.’ But if I wanted to make P6 I’d try to do better and crash. If the bike was not able to fight for the podium, I was not fast enough. This year even in Aragon fighting for eighth position I was able to fight on the limit. This is something that was also really important and why I made a step.”
There has been a maturity in how he dealt with difficulties and adversity, from losing the first race of the year to his teammate to how he reacted to Bagnaia’s late rally. “He’s calmer now. He’s more rational,” Lin Jarvis, Yamaha’s Managing Director, said. “He understands that getting emotional doesn’t bring you anything. If I compare to Valentino and Maverick—Maverick was very emotional and would go from highs to lows. But look on the other side of the garage, no matter what happened to Valentino, he never really got angry in the box. He always analyzed [and would say], ‘There were some good points, but the bad points were these.’ We could work on them. That’s the kind of approach Fabio has taken this year.”
To do this, Fabio has looked within. Even in those worst moments at the end of last year, Quartararo was able to shine an analytical eye on what was going wrong. And controlling those emotions has been key in 2021. As he told journalists after being crowned this year’s champ, “This year I never really got angry. Last year in Valencia, the bike was not working at all, and I arrived to the box I was telling my crew chief. He said, ‘Tell me what is going on.’ But (in that moment), when you are angry you can’t describe what your problem is.
“This year when Maverick (Viñales—early season teammate) in Assen in FP2 was half a second faster than us. I stayed so calm. In the end we won the race. When you see that being calm brings you that kind of result, you want to keep like that.”
Coming back to our conversation, he explained how this year those emotions have been kept under check. “It’s something that I work on. It’s difficult. I’m a guy that has a lot of emotions,” he said. “On one side it’s good, on the other, it’s bad. At Aragon, I wanted to scream. But with self-control I tried to do my best. It was really not easy. It’s a way for me to take experience and learn. It’s a really good way to be more mature.”
And that has helped when Yamaha has undergone a turbulent year. Quartararo’s success aside, the Iwata factory has had to deal with the fallout from Viñales’ mid-season meltdown, Franco Morbidelli’s repeated complaints of receiving outdated machinery as well as Valentino Rossi’s terminal decline. Even when all this was going on, Fabio was unmoved.
“It can be really easy to say the bike is not good because look at the other riders,” he said. “But that’s why I say I don’t care. For me the bike is working really well. Then if the other riders don’t get great results, it’s not my problem. I’m working hard and I don’t want to have something in my head that says, ‘You are P1 but the others are P16, 17 and 19.’ Just because they make this, it doesn’t mean the bike isn’t good. I just keep my way and try not to lose it. That’s why I’m always super focused.”
I only saw this quality in Valentino before…
But how Fabio has carried himself in Yamaha’s factory surroundings has played as big a role in his success. Stepping up to replace Valentino Rossi, 15 years in that team, would be an occasion that could overawe many a 21-year-old. But not here.
Crew chief Diego Gubellini and data technician Pablo Guilliem joined Quartararo in making the transition from the Petronas SRT squad and undoubtedly helped him settle. Jarvis was impressed by their capabilities. “They’re really good,” he said on Sunday evening. “It’s not just that they’re friends—they are really good.” And it wasn’t just his technicians; close friend Tom Maubant has been by his side since 2016 and is always there to offer perspective. Having that close circle of confidants he fully trusts has been another key.
It wasn’t always this way. Father Etienne, a former racer of national renown, was a great help in his formative years. But the pair would regularly clash during Fabio’s tougher moments in the junior classes. “That’s also when we had a bit of fighting with each other,” he told CN. “He understood it well. We have a really good relationship, but we can’t really work together. I like it when he’s here with my mum and enjoying it—not coming to me to talk about bikes. When he’s here I want to talk about whatever, but not bikes. I don’t have many opportunities to see him so it’s great to have him in the paddock, but not [to talk] about bikes.”
At the beginning of the year, Viñales stated Yamaha had a chance to unite its factory team, after years of his and Rossi’s garage working almost as separate entities. “For the last three years the team has a bit like, everyone was going alone,” Viñales said in March. But it was Quartararo, not him, that successfully merged them both.
Looking at Quartararo’s effect on the factory squad as a whole, team manager Massimo Meregalli was struck by the ambience his rider has created in such a short time. “He brought some happiness in the garage,” said the Italian. “From the end of last year to now he didn’t change. He has always been humble, happy and polite. In my opinion, he has the quality, in his own way, he created a group and he is able to get 100 percent from the people that are working from him. And I only saw this quality in Valentino before.”
The next Marquez—dealing with the hype
Born into a biking family, Fabio’s love for bikes came naturally. “To be honest, it was only bikes (that interested me during childhood),” he said. “But not because my dad told me, ‘You need to be on the bike!’ It was more natural. My dad bought me a new bike and said, ‘Try this. If you like it, we will continue.’ I liked it and was telling him all the time, ‘Let’s go riding, let’s go riding!’ I think that helped. With my dad, we always fought. Always. But never when I was on the bike.”
Thanks to a meteoric rise through the junior ranks, he was being touted as the man most likely to challenge Marquez when he was poised to graduate to the world championship seven years ago. However, those articles pondering whether he was the next Marc Marquez were not helpful to a teenager still coming to terms with the cutthroat GP world. But tough times provided him with plenty of experiences to overcome obstacles in future years.
“It was really difficult,” he admitted of that expectation he faced in his grand prix debut in 2015. “It was a great motivation. But with the motivation, the pressure was so high. This is something I had to live with. I had tough years, but I learnt a lot in these tough years.”
There were a few low points in those years in Moto3 and Moto2. Breaking his ankle midway through 2015 was one. A wretched season riding a KTM the following season was another. But the most jarring came in 2018, his second year in Moto2. “A key point that really woke me up was in Argentina [that year],” he said after his Misano success. “I qualified P28. This moment is the one where I just said, ‘Wake up!’ I was starting close to the safety car, scared maybe it could overtake me too. But it was a moment where we said my riding style was not working on Moto2, so I will totally change.”
Speaking to CN, he pointed to the following round at Jerez in ’18 as key. “I didn’t care if I went one second slower. I just wanted to change totally my way of riding. From there it was working pretty well.” Three races later, he picked up the first victory on the world stage—just when Yamaha were searching for a new name for its satellite MotoGP team for the following year. Talk about timing.
2022 and beyond
So, a mix of maturity, social skills and a willingness to work has complimented the talent that was clear for all to see ever since Quartararo swept to his first Spanish Championship title at the age of 13. 2022 is guaranteed to pose an even greater challenge with Bagnaia now fully believing in his own ability, and Marquez closer to being physically restored. But, at 22, it’s fair to say Quartararo still has room to grow. And on this year’s evidence, he’ll attack his title defense with all he has.
“Last year there was inconsistency, frustration and anger,” said Jarvis. “In the winter he and his management analyzed that. He came back at the beginning of this year as ‘Fabio MotoGP Version 3.’ He’s ironed out most of his problems. Fabio this year hasn’t had any weaknesses. Even on his worst days he took points. Chapeau! to him for that. I think he can do this again.” CN
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