The Yamaha rider knew before arriving that Motorland was not going to be an easy stage for him, but as practice went by he began to feel better. Although on Saturday he said – with a small mouth – that he did not see himself “with the rhythm to fight for the podium”, after the warm up this Sunday he changed his mind and he did see himself with the option of doing so.
However, the race was twisted from the start. El Diablo started third on the grid, but it went wrong and on the first lap he lost four places. Quartararo had to fight with the KTMs of Iker Lecuona and Brad Binder.
The French not only did not gain seats from there. Binder finally overtook him, as did Enea Bastianini, leaving him in eighth place at the finish line, 16 seconds behind the winner, Pecco Bagnaia. The Italian is now second in the championship and reduces his disadvantage with Quartararo to 53 points .
“After the warm up I expected to fight for the podium, because I felt I had something really good,” the boy from Nice introduced. “With the used tires I felt very good and with 26 laps I was able to manage it very well.”
(Before reading on, click on this link or on the image to see the photos of the 2021 Aragón GP MotoGP race)
Quartararo pointed to a possible faulty Michelin rear tire as the cause of the debacle.
“From the first lap of the race it seemed that the rear tire was not working as normal. I was losing and losing and losing [places]. I noticed something different. Something went wrong. I don’t know what happened today. Since the first lap I haven’t I had the braking that I had, or the grip, or the traction. So something has gone wrong. I don’t want to say it was the tire, but the feeling that I had today I haven’t had all weekend. We have to check it out in depth, I don’t want to blame anyone, but it was a strange feeling until the end,” he explained.
To make matters worse, Motorland’s long back straight made things even more difficult for the #20 , who despite everything thinks “it wasn’t a disaster”.
“On this track, overtaking is a real mess for us, because from Turn 15 to Turn 1, we lose three or four tenths. Then I have to recover in the corners and I can’t overtake. So it’s a bit difficult. The only thing positive of the day is that I fought for my position, I didn’t give up, even if it was for the seventh, eighth, ninth. I fought until the end, so that’s something positive”, he clinched.
