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It was announced the week before the GP of the Americas that the 25-year old has signed to stay through 2025 and 2026 before revealing “ confidential ” plans to get Yamaha back on track were a driving force behind his decision .
“ There are some really interesting things that are still confidential in Yamaha in the works ,” he said . “ New people are joining and the project is going to be huge . So the decision was made in in Portugal .”
While Yamaha continues to struggle on track , its aggressive hiring of top Ducati personnel – Max Bartolini ( Technical Director ) and Marco Nicotra ( Senior Aerodynamics Engineer ) among them – and change in development approach were other factors behind Quartararo ’ s decision .
“ What really [ made me ] want me to stay was the way we totally changed the way of work ,” he said . “ Already from testing in Malaysia , something was not working and already some engineers wanted to take it out , but some new engineers said ‘ No , we will resolve the problem .’ Then it was working .”
Quartararo stated he had touched base with MotoGP ’ s four other factories to assess whether moves away from the Iwata factory would be realistic . Aprilia was the most hyped , but the 2021 MotoGP™ World Champion opted to stick with what he has known since stepping up to the premier class in 2019 .
Yet the first rounds of the season have seen Yamaha adopting a different approach than normal , with Quartararo and his crew experimenting with settings and new parts through practice sessions .
“ Since Austin we played quite a lot and I think that ’ s great because from the three first races we can try to see where is our weakpoint . We have many small [ ones ] but have cost us a lot of time .
“ You can use it [ the sessions ] in a different way but the most important thing for me right now is to get into the Q2 and it ’ s really , really hard . Even in FP1 we can test the first run … and also – I don ’ t know what it is called ! – Saturday morning , we can try little things also .
“ We can always try things and that can help us find the way to change our setting . In the end this is the first time we change this much in the first year ; engine , the aero is different , the setting is completely different .”
It ’ s not been an easy start to the year . But Yamaha and Quartararo have shown they are working harder than ever to get their seasons back on track . Watch this space !
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