A top 5 in the background
Yamaha continues to make progress at this point in the world championship, and the confirmation also came in Barcelona. In a race unfortunately affected by the accidents of Alex Marquez and Johann Zarco, which led to an inevitable interruption of the GP on two occasions, Fabio Quartararo achieved his best result of the season; seventh at the finish line, the Frenchman subsequently moved up to fifth position due to penalties imposed on Ogura and Mir: while the former was penalized for the contact that occurred on the last lap with Acosta, Mir was demoted to 13th place due to irregular tire pressure. The same penalty, the latter, that Alex Rins had to serve.
After a disappointing Sprint, Quartararo thus finished in the top 5, further improving the excellent result obtained in the last race at Le Mans. However, like all the other riders, the Frenchman was also scared by what happened in the race, especially after the accident involving Alex Marquez: “In the first race we did 12 laps and left rubber on the track, which automatically improved our grip for the third race. I started the second race with a new soft tire, but I had to reuse it for the restart because I had no more new ones. In race 3 I managed to go faster than in race 1, but I was blocked by Marco (Bezzecchi). It was tough, especially the second race. I try to avoid looking at the TV screens in these situations, but when you go through turn 10 and see Álex (Marquez) on the ground like that, you don’t feel like restarting. I got goosebumps: the tire and the bike flying… It’s not easy, but it’s part of our job.”
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Eleventh at the finish line and seven seconds behind Fabio Di Giannantonio, winner of the Catalan GP, Alex Rins would have also finished with his best result of the season, only to then suffer a 16-second penalty that demoted him to 14th place. But for him too, the outcome did not matter: “When things like this happen, for me the race takes a back seat. When I saw Álex Marquez on the ground, my heart broke. I was deeply affected. I tried to breathe deeply in the box, because it’s not nice to see a teammate on the ground. In the end, we are all human, so it was really hard. We struggled a lot here this weekend. The pace wasn’t bad today, it was quite acceptable, but we are not where we want to be.”
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