Quartararo secures hard fought 5th place in #IndonesianGP Sprint, Morbidelli 15th

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP‘s Fabio Quartararo rode both aggressively and defensively in the physically demanding Grand Prix of Indonesia Sprint to take fifth place and score five points. Franco Morbidelli battled with several rivals, and despite things not going his way, he pushed on to take 15th place.

Quartararo had a great start from P4 on the grid and got third place going into the first corner, which he held on to during the opening lap. He didn‘t have the pace to stay with the front two riders though, and a train started to form behind him. The Frenchman made his M1 as wide as possible, but he had to let Jorge Martin through on lap 2 and Marco Bezzecchi on lap 6. The Sprint then turned into a lonely ride for the number-20 rider. With a significant gap to the riders ahead and behind, he rode to the finish line to take fifth place, 3.121s from first.

Morbidelli didn‘t have the opening lap in the Sprint he had hoped for, starting from P15 on the grid. He lost a few positions, but with three rivals crashing out, the Italian found himself back in 15th place after the first two laps and in the middle of the rider group fighting for 11th place. The Yamaha man briefly held 14th, but on lap 5 and 6 it all went south. He was relegated to P17 and lost touch with the group. With Pol Espargaró dropping down the order on lap 9, and Joan Mir crashing out on the last lap, Morbido took the chequered flag in 15th position, 23.331s from first.

Today‘s results see Quartararo keep 10th place in the overall standings with 116 points. Morbidelli remains in 12th with 77 points. The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team stay 6th in the team championship with 193 points, and Yamaha is in 5th position in the constructor‘s championship with 136 points.

The team will be back in action tomorrow for Warm Up, held from 10:40 – 10:50 GMT +8, and the Race, which starts at 15:00.

FABIO QUARTARARO

Of course, it‘s always nice to be towards the front, to see the first guys. Unfortunately, I couldn‘t fight, but I had to stay calm, try to give my 100%, and this is what we did today. I tried to put up a fight with Jorge Martin, but he was faster, so it was only a matter of when he would be able to get away.

FRANCO MORBIDELLI

We messed up our weekend when we didn‘t manage to get into Q2 directly, missing out by 0.3s yesterday, and today by 0.2s. With the lap time I did in Q1, I could have started sixth if I had been in Q2, but instead I started from fifteenth. With fourteen bikes in front of you in this heat, you can‘t do much. The temperature of the tyres goes sky-high, and the bike becomes more difficult to ride.