The Rossi replacement who’s become the MotoGP leader Yamaha needed

Based on the outcome of the last four years, it wouldn’t be unfair to say that Yamaha had been left without a true leader since Jorge Lorenzo took his three-time MotoGP title-winning talent to Ducati back in 2017.

Maverick Vinales, the young star who blazed a trail from Moto3 champion in 2013 through a single year in Moto2 in 2014 and to MotoGP race winner with Suzuki by 2016, was meant to be the plug-in-and-play replacement for Lorenzo.

But his three wins from the first five rounds of 2017 proved to be the only point where Vinales looked like a genuine title threat. Inconsistency issues with both rider and bike since then have led to a souring of relations that has culminated in his shock departure at the end of 2021, announced last week after the Dutch TT.

PLUS: Why the Vinales/Yamaha MotoGP divorce satisfies both parties

And after his 2015 title bid crumbled under the weight of his own paranoid delusions of a conspiracy that Lorenzo and Marc Marquez were out to sabotage his hopes, Valentino Rossi hasn’t been the same rider he once was. The wins dried up and the podium return diminished between 2017 and the end of 2020, by which time Yamaha had already decided he no longer had a place in its factory squad.

In 2019, Yamaha was fortunate enough that Petronas SRT management saw something in Fabio Quartararo that nobody else had. The Frenchman’s grand prix career to that point had fallen well below expectation, the pressure exerted on him as the 'next Marquez' courtesy of his storming pre-GP career weighed heavily on him.

But on lesser machinery – Yamaha’s ‘B-spec’ M1 – Quartararo scored seven podiums and ran Marquez close in Misano and at Buriram fought for victory. Such was his speed that Petronas dipped its hands in its pockets to get him a factory bike for 2020, though Yamaha dropped the ball in producing an M1 lacking in front feeling and too inconsistent in form to be title-worthy – not to mention the illegal engines it ran at the opening rounds severely limiting its rider’s allocation and forcing them to run an already down-on-power engine with less revs.

Fabio Quartararo, Petronas Yamaha SRT

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“I think that it’s a big difference because last year everyone was waiting for me for the first victory,” Quartararo tells Autosport as we sit down for a chat about the first half of a 2021 season he has thus far bossed.

“We had two in less than one week [at Jerez]. And I had not really a kind of pressure, but Yamaha were in trouble in the worst moment [when] I was really in a good moment for me. I was there and I was not feeling great, because I knew I was not able to ride like I wanted.”

The Quartararo of 2020 and the Quartararo that sits on the other side of a Zoom call prior to last month’s Dutch TT is almost a completely different person.

"I feel that the team is happy about not only me, but about my crew, about the way we are working, the atmosphere in the team in both sides with the mechanics is good. All the team is working in a proper way and I think this is helping a lot" Fabio Quartararo

His 2020 high points – his three wins – were juxtaposed by miserable lows, the championship he led for so long crumbling to nothing in a hellish spiral in the final six rounds which ended up with him plummeting to eighth in the standings. In those moments, Quartararo cut an angry, unsettled figure, and this only worsened as he failed to get the bike to work properly for him.

PLUS: How Quartararo plans to bounce back from 2020 MotoGP struggles

All of a sudden, Yamaha’s decision to promote him to its factory squad in 2021 came under scrutiny. Could Quartararo handle the pressure? Was his 2019 form merely a fluke?

“I think for me about the pressure, it becomes something normal,” he explains. “I had pressure all my life and right now I feel it’s something normal. So let’s say I’m used to it.

“For sure there will arrive a moment where it’s much more if you are fighting in one race for the championship, but at the moment I feel the pressure is the same and normal. And the responsibility is huge. Taking the place of Valentino, everyone was waiting for me to make great results and everything.

“But I’m there, I think I’m doing a really great job and I feel that the team is happy about not only me, but about my crew, about the way we are working, the atmosphere in the team in both sides with the mechanics is good. All the team is working in a proper way and I think this is helping a lot.”

Fabio Quartararo celebrates Doha GP victory with his team

Photo by: Yamaha MotoGP

Managing that pressure has been a key weapon in Quartararo’s arsenal this year. Over the winter he took an approach he’s done before and elected to work with a sports psychologist. As frustrating as the bike could be, Quartararo knew it served him no benefit to get angry when the situation isn’t right.

“Honestly, I’ve been only two times since November 2020, but that’s enough for me,” he says of his psychologist sessions. “My main goal was for him to help me to stay calm, he gave me some exercises that I do before the practices or when I feel I need to do these exercises.

“At that moment for me it’s just a reminder that when I’m angry or unhappy, I just do these exercises and it’s keeping me calm - it’s nothing more. It takes less than five seconds to make the exercise, so I can do it whenever – even on the bike.”

But all of this self-help would have gone somewhat to waste had Yamaha not held up its end of the bargain and improved its problematic bike. Although it couldn’t touch the engine over the winter due to COVID-19 cost-saving measures, Yamaha has been able to make key improvements to the front end which has given back Quartararo the feeling he had on the 2019 bike.

This was proven in Qatar. Dropping to the outer reaches of the top 10 off the line in the Doha GP, Quartararo carved his way through the pack to take victory, echoing the manner in which Vinales won the season-opening Qatar GP. At Portimao, one of Yamaha’s worst tracks in 2020, Quartararo won and was on course for another maximum score at Jerez before being struck by an arm-pump issue which dropped him to 13th.

From struggling massively in the wet in the 2020 French GP, where he was ninth, Quartararo salvaged third in the flag-to-flag 2021 edition. A dominant win at Mugello was a significant display of the potency of the 2021 Yamaha in Quartararo’s hands, while a suit issue and a track limits penalty in Barcelona denied him another sure-fire podium chance. Struggling all weekend at the Sachsenring, Quartararo took third while Vinales was stone dead last, while the Frenchman dominated at Assen to take a 34-point lead into the summer break.

Able to capitalise when the bike is at its best, Quartararo’s damage limitation has still been good enough for the podium, which is a far cry to what the 2020 M1 was capable of in its worst days. But, again, it’s Quartararo who has been making the difference. The next 2021 M1 rider in the standings in Vinales in sixth, 61 points adrift, while Rossi is 139 down in 19th.

Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Dorna

“I ride different than last year, it’s not really natural, but it works well,” he reveals. “I can feel the limit, I feel I can go really fast and for the moment I think that it’s going great. Normally I’m more of a rider to go super-fast in corner speed and right now I try to be a little bit more like an animal, braking super late, trying to ride a little bit on a different way.

“Like [there were] corners in Germany where I could go faster, but I was just thinking about the bike if I go faster is not turning, so I need to make a different way to think more about the exit and this. In a few tracks it happens, so it’s not totally natural but you need to adapt. If you’re slower in one corner, in another you will be faster. It’s not natural and easy but when you understand the bike it’s going fast and you ride in an easy way and faster.”

There is still a long way to go in 2021 and a double-header in Austria to begin the second half of the campaign isn’t a strong place for Quartararo to build on his championship lead. But he goes there equipped to deal with any hardships which may arise and is considered enough to learn from them

Vinales’ plight and his falling out with Yamaha further highlights what has made Quartararo so strong this year. Not only has he been able to adapt to the bike when it’s not perfect, he’s been willing to. He’s been willing to accept that not all problems can be solved by Japanese engineers and that he also had to help himself. And it’s here where you begin to see why Yamaha felt he was its future.

“I think in those moments… that was my problem last year,” he adds. “I was unhappy to finish 12th, 14th and I crashed, I pushed the limit. But in many races, you have to fight for three, four points, five, even one. I remember in 2013 I won the championship by one point in the Spanish Championship.”

There is still a long way to go in 2021 and a double-header in Austria to begin the second half of the campaign isn’t a strong place for Quartararo to build on his championship lead. But he goes there equipped to deal with any hardships which may arise and is considered enough to learn from them.

Quartararo and Lorenzo couldn’t be more different as characters. Lorenzo was the brash egotist who had an almost divine belief in his ability. Quartararo is much more grounded, fast but convinced he can be faster and willing to explore any means of achieving that. Wherever Lorenzo went, tension seemed to emanate from his garage, while Quartararo has cultivated an atmosphere far more positive in his box.

Had Lorenzo stayed beyond 2016, Yamaha likely would have enjoyed more success than it has done. But it now finally looks like in Quartararo Yamaha has the leader it has long needed…

Race winner Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Dorna