Quartararo didn’t expect to be “that good” in Qatar GP…

Yamaha factory rider Fabio Quartararo was positively surprised by his race pace in the Qatar GP sprint on Saturday, when the Frenchman converted a morale-boosting front row start into fifth position at the flag.

The 2021 world champion briefly ran third at the start of the race, the same position in which he had qualified. He was quickly demoted by the VR46 Ducati of Franco Morbidelli, then ran fourth until the final corner. At that point, a mistake gifted the place to rookie Fermin Aldeguer.

But Quartararo’s spirits remained high in spite of the late error. The fifth place was one better than his previous best of the year, which came in the sprint in Austin two weeks ago.

"It was positive to see the pace we had over 11 laps. I was a bit worried about that,” he admitted.

“The race was pretty good. We had a pretty good pace but unfortunately it's complicated to prepare an overtake on the Ducatis. I think I made a very good start, a good first lap, but it was complicated to do better.”

While Quartararo had feared a worse outing in the race than eventually transpired, he said his sensational qualifying lap came as no surprise.

“I knew I was going to make a really, really good qualifying lap. I didn't know it was going to be that good – but it was one of the first times [I could] push that much to the limit and make zero mistakes. I haven’t been able to do that for a very long time, because when things are not working perfectly you're always pushing too much, making small mistakes. Today I made no mistakes on the fast lap… and it felt fast.”

Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing (Photo by: Karim Jaafar - AFP - Getty Images)

The front-row start was Quartararo’s first since the Dutch TT in 2022.

"That's quite a [long] time and I think it's interesting,” he reflected. "I'm having a lot more fun on a qualifying lap than in a race. To go flat out like that on a lap is exceptional and I think it was the best moment of the day.

“Frankly, it's been a long time since we had such a positive Saturday."

The performance followed Quartararo saying on Thursday that he did not intend to touch his bike settings all weekend. He said he would rather try to explore new limits through his own riding.

Quartararo, who won at this track during his title-winning campaign in 2021, admitted that the M1 was still well-suited to the Losail circuit.

“The bike suits the track quite well. I think this is really positive and we have to take the benefit. It's not always that we have this feeling so I had to throw everything [at it] and hopefully at the next races we have the same feeling.

“It’s a really long time since I felt like that over one lap. And we are I think 1.2 seconds faster than last year so it's really, really good.

"It feels great, especially the qualifying – not seeing anyone in front [on the grid] makes a change!”