Fabio Quartararo did not score any points in Buriram, but he was not the only Yamaha rider to suffer. Franco Morbidelli added three points after finishing in 13th position; a modest performance, although one of the Italian’s best results so far this year.
The former Moto2 champion was limited by the performance of his bike in the final laps. Although he was ninth at the halfway point in the race and on the verge of equaling his best result of the course, also achieved in the rain at Mandalika, he dropped four positions in the closing stages of the race.
“I found a good rhythm with my set-up and was able to ride quite fast,” the 2020 runner-up told the official MotoGP website. “But, when I was getting to the wheel of other bikes, I wasn’t able to overtake and I couldn’t do anything. dry. There’s not much difference.”
That weak point that the Italian-Brazilian is talking about is the increase in the temperature of the front tire , and therefore its pressure, which makes it difficult to handle the bike. “ The pressure of the front tires was very high and the performance of the tires dropped a lot,” Morbidelli summed up in his press conference. “When I got close to other bikes it was difficult to overtake them. Still, I managed to get back into the group that was fighting for sixth place, but then the front tire got worse again.”
“It wasn’t Yamaha’s day”
Franco Morbidelli was not the only one affected by the uncontrollable increase in pressure in the front tire. Cal Crutchlow experienced the same problem on the RNF satellite Yamaha and, although he had just scored points in the first two tests on his return to racing, he finished the race a distant 19th.
“ As you could see, it was a difficult race for Yamaha,” said the Englishman, who believes that Quartararo suffered from the same problem: “Fabio, Darryn [Binder] and I seem to have had similar problems with the front tire pressure, which is warms up right away. Already on the warm-up lap my tire reached the pressure it should have in the middle of the race or if I was in the middle of a fight. I already knew it was going to be difficult, but it’s a shame because in the dry we had a good pace [ …], but our problems were amplified in the wet.”
“I was expecting a lot more, but as you can see, it wasn’t Yamaha’s day,” Crutchlow summed up. “I couldn’t take the corners, the front tire pressure was too high. I overtook Fabio because I thought I could get some points, but when we got closer to the front group the pressure shot up again…”
In the other RNF mount, Darryn Binder said he did not have a clear pressure problem, but he was limited and was unable to put up a fight with the rest of the pilots. The South African finished in 21st position, only ahead of Tetsuta Nagashima, who was completing his second MotoGP race, and Luca Marini, who had previously crashed.
“ It’s always difficult to start a race without having done a single lap in the rain,” said the South African. “It’s very strange, because I felt very good for the first five laps. I was gaining some positions and I was going faster and faster. It was like reaching a dead end, and I started to suffer until the end.”
“We have to get through this. It’s very disappointing to start a race thinking you have a chance and see things turn around and you end up behind. I’m a little disappointed, but it’s still very difficult when you don’t have knowledge of a track in The rain”.
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