A weekend, zero points
The marriage between Quartararo and Yamaha is getting closer and closer to its natural conclusion, with the French rider set to compete in the 2027 championship on Honda, but even at the last Aragon GP the weekend results did not smile on the ‘Diablo’. Already forced to retire in the Sprint due to a technical problem, the main race held on Sunday ended for the second consecutive time outside the top 15, as happened in Silverstone.
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Starting 17th, Quartararo even dropped to last position at the end of the first lap, then launching a comeback that brought him to the edge of the points zone. However, halfway through the race, the Frenchman slipped to 19th place, then recovered one position following Razgatlioglu’s crash and caught up with Savadori, but was unable to get close enough to the latter to attempt an attack: “My start wasn’t good, but not that bad either – he explained – I passed Marini, who in turn passed me on the first lap. I think it was Binder or Bastianini, one of the two passed me, and I was in their slipstream on the back straight. He braked earlier than expected, and the rear locked up and I went very wide. Then behind Toprak, I locked the front at turn 7, lost more seconds and then ended up in the gravel. I think my lap was 15 seconds slower than normal. I will try to understand what happened.”
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The return to the top 15
Also close to saying goodbye to the Iwata house, Alex Rins instead finished the home GP in the points zone, with a 13th place achieved in six laps after starting from 19th position and defended until the checkered flag, with an attempt to overtake Mir at the end: “It was quite hot. Regarding the goals we set today, I finished in a better position than I expected, considering we started from 19th position. The pace wasn’t bad and I felt I had a better pace than the rider in front of me, Mir, but I couldn’t pass him. As soon as Binder passed me, I tried again, but in the end I was too far and couldn’t overtake him. Anyway, today I made the most of our package.”
