Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP |News details:Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Persevere During COTA Sprint

Pictures for editorial use only
Copyright 2024 Yamaha Motor Racing Srl

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP’s Fabio Quartararo and Álex Rins started today's Grand Prix of The Americas Sprint from P16 and P15 respectively. After pushing to the fullest for 10 laps around the Circuit of The Americas, the pair finished in reverse order in 15th and 16th position.

Austin (Texas, USA), 13th April 2024

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP’s Fabio Quartararo and Álex Rins were keen to make progress on the Grand Prix of The Americas Super Saturday. Though the teammates didn’t quite have the pace they had hoped for during the Sprint and finished in 15th and 16th place respectively, they did collect further data for Sunday's Race.

After a good start from P16, Quartararo wrapped up the first lap in 13th place. He held the position until lap 3 when Marco Bezzecchi slipped by, and Alex Marquez did likewise one lap later. The Frenchman sat tight as the group that he was chasing, consisting of five riders, was battling for tenth position. However, his hopes of a top-10 result crumbled as the rider group got pulled apart over the last seven laps of the Sprint. Quartararo put pressure on Alex Marquez until the very end, though. He finished 0.106s behind the Spaniard, in 15th place, 15.574s from first.

Rins had a good launch from P15, rocketing to 12th, but after a somewhat chaotic opening lap that temporarily saw him fall back to 22nd, he crossed the start-finish straight for the first time in 17th. The Spaniard wasn't about to give up easily, though, and was soon in a fight for 16th place with Johann Zarco. On lap 4, the Yamaha man made it stick, finding himself behind his teammate, albeit with a significant gap. Rins put his head down, but he was unable to make up ground and took the chequered flag in 16th place, 18.146s from the front.

Today's results see Quartararo keep his 11th place (or joint 10th place with Fabio Di Giannantonio) in the overall standings with 15 points. Rins remains in 18th position with 3 points. Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP stay 8th in the team championship with 18 points, and Yamaha hold on to 4th position in the constructor’s championship with 15 points.

On the Americas GP Sunday, the teammates will start the track action with the Warm Up held from 09:40 - 09:50 (GMT -5), followed by the Race which starts at 14:00.

Massimo Meregalli

Team Director

After the tough Friday sessions, we knew this race weekend would be an uphill battle. Following a less than ideal start yesterday, we had a lot of things to try this morning, but we didn't have that much time – just the 30-minute FP2 before qualifying. In the end, Álex and Fabio qualified further down the starting grid than we would have liked, in P15 and P16, and we knew this would make today's Sprint and tomorrow's Race even harder. We went into the 10-lap Sprint with the objective to get some useful data, and we will make adjustments accordingly. We'll try the tweaked settings in tomorrow's Warm Up and hopefully this will pay off during the Race.

Fabio Quartararo

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider

Today, I was behind Alex Marquez, and I was faster in Sector 2 and 3, but he was faster in Sector 1 and 4. Every time I caught up, he pulled away again, so I couldn't overtake him on the last laps. That said, on every run we did this weekend, we tried quite big changes on the bike. Also, for the Sprint race we went out with a bike that we never used, and I think that's something good about being in the position that we are in now: we can try big changes. I think that the way in which we are working is good, even if the results don't reflect it. We are trying things we never did in the past. Tomorrow we will try something new again in the morning, and if that gives us new ideas for the Race, then we will try that. We don't have to be conservative in our current position, and trying different things is giving us a sense of direction to work towards, and this gives us positive ideas for the future.

Álex Rins

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider

It was a very difficult Sprint, even more so because I got involved in the problem that Marco [Bezzecchi] had at the start. Then, in the second corner, I went outside the track with him, and I was last. Then I tried to ride on my own and recover positions, I did some overtakes. It was hard. We were struggling in the second half of the Sprint race. The last few laps, I was not feeling enough support on the front. We're checking why this is the case. I need to adapt and find out how to ride in a slightly different way to not have these problems.