Fabio quartararo; the next big thing in mo tog p
Over the last three years it’s been rags-to-riches for Fabio Quartararo. Now the Yamaha rider hopes to become France’s first Motogp world champion…
Not many people know this, but the most important day of Fabio Quartararo’s life was Saturday 7 April, 2018. ‘That was the worst feeling I ever had in my life,’ says the 21-year-old. ‘At that moment I asked myself: what am I doing here? I’d gone so far from where I wanted to be that I didn’t even know where I was.’
But, as Yamaha’s first world championship superstar ‘King’ Kenny Roberts always likes to remind us: losing makes you stronger. It certainly did the trick for Quartararo.
‘From that moment I totally changed my way of thinking. When I got home I went to see a psychologist to see what was happening. From there we made steps forward at the next races at Jerez, Le Mans and Barcelona, where I made my first GP win. So that moment in Argentina was really important in my life, because it was one of the worst, but it made me learn something for the future. Of course, I was worried that I might not make it, but what matters is that from there I made a jump forward and the next year I stepped up to Motogp.’ Twelve months after he had lined up on the tenth row of the Moto2 grid at Termas, Quartararo was back at the same circuit, lining up on the Motogp grid, immediately behind Valentino Rossi, his childhood hero. And five weeks after that he took pole position
‘Most teenagers want to get drunk so why should racers be different? They aren’t, but they have to be’
at the Spanish GP, 12 places ahead of Rossi. It was some turnaround – a Motogp tale of rags to riches if ever there was…
Another year later, July 2020, Quartararo found himself on top of the podium at Jerez, celebrating his second Motogp victory with thirdplaced Rossi. ‘To be there on the podium with Valentino was amazing. He’s been my idol for many years, so what could be better than standing next to him on the podium?’
Quartararo is from France, but like most up-and-coming GP riders he made his name in Spain, in the hugely competitive Campeonato de España de Velocidad, the best route into GPS. ‘Every weekend my father drove me 750 miles there and back and told me “You’ll face greater competition there and that’ll make you a better rider”.’
All those miles paid off. When Quartararo won back-to-back CEV titles he was in huge demand in the GP paddock, with Moto3 world championship teams queuing up to sign him. But there was a problem – he wasn’t eligible for the 2016 world championship because the season started before his 16th birthday. Motogp had a simple solution to the problem – its Grand Prix Commission sat and changed the rules. That’s how much everyone rated him.
Some Motogp insiders even bet money on Quartararo winning the Moto3 world title at his first attempt. But he didn’t. Bike problems, injuries, team issues and perhaps a distracted teenager’s mind turned his first two world-class seasons into a nightmare.
If you cast your mind back to your teenage years you can probably imagine that it’s not easy for a burgeoning young talent to keep his mind fully focused on the racetrack. Most teenagers want to get drunk and fall in love, so why should racers be any different? They aren’t, but they have to be. Once they’ve signed a big-money deal they’ve sold their soul to the sport. Their first loves must be training and riding. Some managers go as far as forbidding their riders from having girlfriends. Quartararo finished the 2015 Moto3 season tenth overall and the following year he slumped to 13th. In 2017 he gave Moto2 a try and finished 13th once again. Argentina 2018 was rock bottom.
Two months later his Barcelona victory changed everything. Within weeks he had signed with Yamaha’s all-new independent Motogp team, backed by Malaysian oil and gas giant Petronas and Sepang circuit.
Quartararo’s rookie success in Motogp last year – pole position at his fourth race (which beat Marquez’s youngest-ever pole record) and a podium finish at his seventh – came thanks to two main factors. Yamaha’s YZR-M1 is the friendliest bike on the grid and Quartararo has the best people around him to nurture a youngster, most of all Petronas SRT team manager Wilco Zeelenberg, an avuncular Dutchman and former 250 GP winner.
‘When I arrived in Motogp I found a more professional team, who taught me well. They told me some tricks, so I found confidence and step by step I became faster. In Motogp you need to think about so much: engine mapping, tyres, engine-brake mapping… I adapted to this quite well, so it was this combination that made me adapt faster to Motogp than I adapted to Moto2 and Moto3.
‘This team understands how to get the best from me. They know I’m working hard, so they don’t tell me, “You need to win,” or “You must not crash.” They just say, “Do your best.” I like this kind of motivation – it’s much more positive for me. ‘In this way I have no stress when I ride – the only thing that does stress me is the starts. But I don’t see why I should put pressure on myself, because we work well, I ride fast and we get good results. My plan is to keep going like this.’
During his darker days in Moto2 and Moto3 Quartararo struggled with that most modern of maladies: internet bullying.
‘Three years ago the [social media] criticism affected me a lot. I really didn’t feel good for a while. Now the only people I listen to are my team. I don’t pay any attention to any other negative comments. If anyone else tells me, “You must win!” it goes in here and out here.’ He mimes the criticism entering one ear and exiting the other.
These days Quartararo beams with the confidence of a young man who knows where he’s going. He has a wondrous talent, but there are lots of kids like that. The attributes that make the difference are his intelligence and his coolness under fire. These qualities are every bit as important as his talent to extract the maximum from an engine and a pair of wheels, because without them no rider can use his skills when
they’re really needed, which is on Sunday afternoon, when the pressure of a Motogp start would blow most people’s minds.
In this respect he is like Marquez and Valentino Rossi, Motogp’s most successful riders of the past two decades. You find Quartararo behind the pits after a practice session, surrounded by a scrum of journalists, all of them firing questions, in French, Spanish, Italian and English. He answers each question in the interlocuter’s own tongue, hardly pausing for breath. That’s pretty cool.
Quartararo also enjoys the limelight, again like Rossi and Marquez, which is another crucial part of Motogp success, because if you don’t like fame it will burn you up pretty quick, like it did Casey Stoner. ‘I accept it because when no one wants to interview you it usually means you are finishing last!’ he laughs. ‘Of course sometimes I’d rather relax than be in front of a microphone, but it’s part of the game.’ Quartararo has three staffers who help keep him sane and focused in the glare of the spotlight: manager Eric Mahé, Petronas SRT PR man Pol Bertran and helper Tom Maubant.
‘They are there so I don’t have to think about time schedules, media demands or anything like that, because one of them always comes to me and tells me to do this or do that. I don’t have to look at my watch, so I can think only about my motorcycle, my settings and my riding.’ Although his back-to-back victories at July’s season-opening Spanish and Andalusian GPS had him splashed all over the front pages of the French newspapers there was no joyous homecoming when he returned from Jerez.
‘After you win a GP you always go out and celebrate a lot with your friends and your family. But after I won both races at Jerez it was strange because when I got home I saw no one and I was always wearing a face mask. I went to see my family in Nice, but even then my mum couldn’t kiss me to congratulate me. I was a bit scared and stressed because Checo Perez [the Mexican F1 driver] got the virus and had to miss a few races…
‘Usually when I am at home I like to disconnect and not talk about motorcycles. When I go to see my family they like to question me about my life as a rider but I tell them to stop. I have a lot more to talk about than racing. It’s important for me to unplug.’
Getting away from it all is vital, because the life of a professional
motorcycle racer isn’t what it used to be. Back in the day, pro racers lived the life of rock and roll hellraisers. If they survived the race on Sunday they’d spend half the next week whooping it up in nightclubs.
Not anymore, because racing is too competitive and because Motogp bikes pull 1.8g on the brakes. So, it’s get down the gym, boy… When Quartararo is at home in Andorra (the favoured tax haven of Motogp riders) he spends most of his time training. ‘I do two sessions a day, every day. Sometimes gym, sometimes cycling, sometimes motorcycles. I’m physically stronger than I was before Motogp, because riding a Motogp bike develops a lot of muscles.
‘But I have to be careful, because I build muscle very easily and that’s not good for what we do, because muscles are heavy. For example, if I do too much cycling I gain a lot of weight. The only cardio sport I can do without gaining muscle is running.
‘Andorra is great for training, because it’s high altitude, which is good for getting your body used to working in extreme conditions. And a lot of riders live here. This morning I saw [Maverick] Vinales at the gym. We say, “Hello,” nothing special. And I often see [Alex] Rins too. When I do dirt track or minimoto it’s usually with our gang: Jack [Miller], John [Mcphee], Ayumu [Sasaki] and Marcel [Schrotter].’ These elbows-out minibike training sessions are as much about keeping the competitive spirit burning as improving riding skills.
Many onlookers liken Quartararo’s riding technique to that of Jorge Lorenzo, who sweeps through corners with gracious ease and mega speed. Quartararo is indeed pinpoint accurate, unerringly consistent and very fast, but he has more than the precision and smoothness of cut glass going for him.
When there’s a lot of grip he likes to dance on the edge of the tyres, but when there isn’t so much grip he can point-and-squirt the bike with the best of them. This chameleon trick – adapting riding technique race by race and even corner by corner – is vital in Motogp’s current era of spec software and Michelin tyres, because machines are outside the sweet spot so riders must improvise to extract maximum performance. ‘I have improved my capacity of adaptation since last year and also my ability to manage the bike and the tyres in different conditions. In Motogp you are always learning how to save the tyres, how to ride the bike with a full tank, how to ride the bike when the tank is nearly empty, how to play with the mapping, because all of this makes everything quite different.
‘The Yamaha is friendly, which helps you not do stupid things. It has only one real negative point – top speed – but you can’t have everything.’ Quartararo’s life has been totally transformed since 2018: from Moto2 midfielder to Motogp megastar. ‘In 2018 I was a nobody,’ he says. ‘When I was a kid my big ambition was to make this sport my job, so I worked hard to make that dream come true. I don’t come from a wealthy family, so when I started taking a salary in Moto3 – from my team and personal sponsors – it was already a lot of money to me. Now the salary gets bigger and bigger. I know how much a normal job pays, so I’m aware that I am privileged. I don’t even consider what I do to be work, because when I ride I have fun. On the other hand, I’ve made a lot of sacrifices to get to where I am.’
If Quartararo does win the Motogp title he will be the first Frenchman to do so. The country’s best performer so far is Christian Sarron, who finished third in 1989, behind Americans Eddie Lawson and Wayne Rainey.
‘The attributes that make the difference are his intelligence and his coolness under fire’