Factory Yamaha MotoGP rider Fabio Quartararo says he is done tweaking the set-up of his bike: wringing the neck of the M1 is the best way forward.
The Japanese manufacturer appears to have flattered to deceive in pre-season testing, with an overall disappointing performance across the first three weekends of the season. Quartararo’s personal highlight has been a sixth place in the sprint race at the Americas GP.
Adding to the Frenchman’s frustration is the fact that independent Pramac rider Jack Miller has arguably led the way for Yamaha so far in 2025. The Australian has defeated the 2021 world champion in all three grands prix to date, securing the marque’s best result of the year so far with fifth in the Americas GP.
Now Quartararo has declared that he is in no mood for fine-tuning any new ideas. Given the technical situation with the M1, he believes he must now simply lean on his talent to get the best results. Starting with this weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix.
“We are trying to find grip by always changing the set-up of the bike, but we already changed 20 times,” said Quartararo ahead of the Losail race. “So we know we will not really find the performance by changing. But during the first grands prix we always changed… we wanted to compare different tracks.”
But the man from Nice, who won in Qatar (at the Doha GP) early in his championship season, says this early experimentation has gone as far as it can usefully go.
“I think it's good to have a base, and I adapt to the base. The day we really have something important to try, or something we think is really a help, we’ll try it back to back, whenever. But I don't want to [experiment] anymore, because [whenever we go to a new track it’s] the same things.
“So now I want to focus on my riding, because every time we change I never find the limit of my bike. Every time we change we don't really know, so for this GP I will not touch the bike. I will keep the same base from Free Practice 1 to the race. Of course [we can] adjust if we need, but [we won’t change] a lot of things.”
Quartararo’s strong finishing record this season does support his notion that he has not yet tested the limits of the M1 from a riding perspective. His only spill thus far was a crash on the wet sighting lap for the Americas GP.
