Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP |News details:Work in Progress for Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP on COTA Friday

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The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team kicked off proceedings at the Grand Prix of The Americas event in perfectly sunny riding conditions. Fabio Quartararo and Álex Rins ended the Friday afternoon Practice session in 17th and 18th place respectively, putting them on the Q1 entry list.

Austin (Texas), 12th April 2024

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP's Fabio Quartararo and Álex Rins wrapped up the Grand Prix of The Americas Practice session in 17th and 18h place respectively, putting them on the Q1 entry list.

After some hard work during the FP1 session in the morning, Quartararo held a top-10 position in the early stages of the 1h afternoon Practice. However, he struggled to find Q2 pace as the times dropped throughout the session. A 2'02.839s on lap 19/20 put him 17th in the rankings, 1.442s from first.

Rins enjoyed riding at the COTA track again, one of his favourites on the MotoGP calendar, but the Spaniard's Friday didn't play out as hoped. He put in a total of 17 laps in the afternoon Practice. His best time, a 2'02.875s, had him finish the session in 18th place, 1.478s from the top.

On Saturday, the teammates will be back in action for FP2, held from 10:10 - 10:40 (GMT -5). The qualifying sessions will follow from 10:50 - 11:30, and the Sprint will start at 15:00.

Massimo Meregalli

Team Director

We are further behind here at COTA than we had hoped. Our goal was, as always, to be inside the top 10 to have the best chances for qualifying tomorrow, but we are about a second off the mark where we want to be. Consequently, both Fabio and Álex have to take part in Q1 tomorrow. We need to work hard to find a time improvement and get ready for qualifying and the Sprint.

Fabio Quartararo

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider

It was more difficult than we expected. We tried many things today to try to find more turning compared to this morning, but we didn't really find it. We expected the times to be a little bit better and not this far from the top. But let's see tomorrow. Hopefully we can find small things to improve the feeling. The top speed is a positive point. We were able to play a little bit more with the power today, especially in slow corners. We have a little bit more aero, but we need to improve the turning. I feel like we soon will make the step that we want.

Álex Rins

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider

We are working quite hard. We started FP1 and it was bit difficult to find the best way to be fast. I'm struggling on the change of direction. This is not new, but this time I also found it quite difficult to stop the bike on hard braking. But we are working to find a solution, for sure. Let's see. Today was a good day in terms of laps and in terms of trying different things on the bike. So, right now we need to analyse, and we need to select the best package for the qualy and the Sprint tomorrow.