Petronas Yamaha SRT duo gears up for season finale

KUALA LUMPUR: The Petronas Yamaha Sepang Racing (SRT) Team riders, Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli are geared up to conclude the 2019 Motorcycle Grand Prix (MotoGP) season in style, at the Valencian GP this coming weekend.

As the race weekend at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in midNovember is frequently filled with weather surprises, the newly-crowned Independent Teams' champions are going into the weekend prepared for all eventualities, despite the technical and physically demanding nature of one of the shortest tracks on the calendar.

Quartararo, 20, who is 23 points clear in the Independent Riders' championship, looks set to add another laurel to his palmares as he rounds out an incredible rookie season at the track where he made his MotoGP debut testing twelve months ago.

Finishing sixth there last year in wet conditions in the Moto2 class and a four-time winner at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo en route to back-toback CEV Moto3 titles in 2013 and 2014, Quartararo has plenty of experience and good memories at the Valencian track as he prepares to see out an amazing season.

“The target is to finish out the year strongly at Valencia with a good final race. We're really close to achieving the Independent Riders' championship, with the gap to Jack [Miller] now over twenty points, so another goal will be to manage that effectively,” he said in a statement issued by the Malaysian outfit.

“The set-up of our bike is completely different now from how it was when I last rode Valencia twelve months ago. I've got more experience as a rider and the team has more experience too, so we should be able to go a lot faster this time round - but it'll still be useful to compare data from a year ago to see where we still need to improve,” the Frenchman added.

Morbidelli, 24, who is also an experienced competitor at Valencia, twice a podiumfinisher at the traditional season-ending round in the Moto2 class, is also keen to go into the winter break showing what he's capable of with a strong result to round out the year at the 4km-long Spanish track.

“I like Valencia a lot and I have great memories from it, last year I crashed out of fifth place, so even though it wasn't the result I wanted it showed I can be strong. Hopefully the weather will be good, because we want to arrive with a lot of positive energy after a few tricky rounds.

“I want to do an excellent job to finish off the season, and if I can transmit some of my good energy to the crew then I'm confident that we can work very well this weekend. The Yamaha YZR-M1 was a very easy bike to ride at Valencia for the first time twelve months ago, and I'm looking forward to experiencing that again,” he said.