Quartararo: Yamaha made bigger gains over the winter than in previous five years

Fabio Quartararo believes Yamaha’s MotoGP squad delivered a bigger step in performance over the winter break than it did in the five previous seasons combined.

Quartararo has been lapping among the quickest riders in the field since the first official MotoGP pre-season test began at Sepang on Wednesday.

While initially this speed was put down to the headstart he and Yamaha got thanks to their participation in a three-day shakedown at the Sepang test, it quickly became clear that the pace they were showing was genuine.

The Frenchman was the only rider to be in the mix with the Ducatis as the test concluded on Friday, ending up third quickest and only 0.231s behind Alex Marquez on the lead Gresini bike.

Quartararo’s best lap was a 1m56.724s, which compares favourably to the 1m57.592s effort he produced to qualify eighth for the Malaysian Grand Prix just four months ago in November.

The 25-year-old claimed that this improvement in lap time exceeded the gains Yamaha had previously made since 2019.

“My fastest lap was qualifying last year, which was 57.5, so I think the gap is more than eight tenths,” he explained.

“What I was saying is that from 2019 to 2024 we improved six tenths, and from 2024 to 2025, we improved eight tenths.

“Of course, we can be happy. We need to stay calm, it’s only the test but I think it’s quite good.

“Last year in the test, Pecco [Bagnaia] made 56.6, that’s more or less the lap time I did this year. I think we can be pretty happy.”

Quartararo took pole position at Sepang in 2019, leading a Yamaha 1-2 in qualifying with a time of 1m58.303s.

Comparing that with his qualifying time of 1m57.592s from last year, Yamaha made an improvement of a little over seven tenths in five years, slightly higher than Quartararo’s own estimate.

However, that is still less than the leap Yamaha made in the last four months, verifying the Frenchman’s claim.

Quartararo was also impressed by the long-run pace of the improved M1 in testing, although he admitted that Ducatis of factory riders Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia are still some way ahead.

“I had to make six laps with one setting and six laps with another setting with new tyres. It was good. It was not like Marc who made almost 56, 57 middle-high, 58 really, really low [alp times].

“I think you have to consider that last year we were P11, P12 here and now we are looking at the pace of Marc and Pecco and Alex, who are the fastest around here.

“I think the gap is quite big but I’m pretty happy about the lap time I did, especially it was not only one lap and that’s it, [the long run pace was also good].”

Race pace had always been a strong point of the Yamaha, but Quartararo used to qualify too far back in 2024 in order to take full advantage of it.

“One lap [pace] last year was the biggest problem because we always start super fast and it was difficult for us to overtake.

“Right now before I made my first time attack, I knew I was going to make 1m56s. But last year the problem was you put a new tyre and you don’t know the lap time you were going to do.

“But the race pace was never really the problem, the problem was starting from p15, it was impossible to overtake. But also our engine is a bit faster so we will see in the first races how we will manage.”

Photos from Sepang Test – Day 3