Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP’s Fabio Quartararo secured an eighth-place finish at this weekend’s Argentinian Grand Prix as the paddock made its welcome return to Termas de Río Hondo for the first time since 2019.
Following a hectic build up to round three of the 2022 MotoGP World Championship, which saw Friday’s track action cancelled due to a delay in the MotoGP teams‘ cargo shipment, the paddock was delighted to finally get track action underway on Saturday.
Starting the shortened 25-lap encounter from sixth on the grid, Fabio Quartararo made a strong start, holding seventh in the opening stages before slipping to ninth by the end of the opening lap. Losing further positions on the second tour of the Termas circuit, Quartararo began to find his rhythm and got his head down.
Making the most of his hard-soft tyre combination, the Frenchman launched an attack on compatriot Johann Zarco. Briefly getting ahead of the Ducati, the Yamaha rider established 12th place after Zarco crashed out on lap six. With Takaaki Nakagami in front, the Monster Energy Yamaha rider pushed on, getting the better of the Japanese rider on lap nine.
Just outside of the top-ten by the midway stage, Quartararo was promoted to tenth after a crash for his rival on lap 15, but he wasn’t finished there. The 22-year-old worked his way up to eighth, clearing Enea Bastianini and Luca Marini by lap 19. With the gap to Brad Binder too much for him to bridge, the 2021 World Champion held eighth position to the flag, securing eight points for his championship quest.
WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team’s Darryn Binder put in another strong performance. The rookie started his third MotoGP race from 23rd place and made a solid start. Gaining three places on the opening lap, the South African moved ahead of Franco Morbidelli before getting locked in battle with his fellow rookies. Fighting hard for 17th, Binder narrowly missed out, dropping to 18th place on the final lap, 28.784 seconds from first.
Andrea Dovizioso’s Argentinian Grand Prix assault hit difficulty when an issue forced him to enter the pits on lap one. However, the experienced Italian was able to re-join the race, albeit three laps adrift from the rest of the field, finishing 20th.
Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP’s Franco Morbidelli endured a tough start to the Grand Prix, slipping back to 18th on the opening lap. Working his way up to the cusp of the points battle, the 27-year-old was forced to retire with a puncture prematurely ending his challenge.
World Champion Fabio Quartararo now sits fifth in the standings, ten points behind the series leader. Franco Morbidelli lays 12th while Darryn Binder and Andrea Dovizioso sit 19th and 21st respectively. Yamaha head to Austin fifth in the constructor’s standings; Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP place fourth in the team rankings with 49 points.
There’s no rest for the MotoGP paddock as they head stateside for the American Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas where Fabio Quartararo will be aiming for repeat-success of his podium finish at the Texan venue in October last year.
Fabio Quartararo – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP, 8th
“The big issue was rear grip and top speed. We already knew about the top speed, but the lack of rear grip was surprising. The first few laps were a nightmare – I was losing positions. As soon as there was more rubber on the track, it was better. But overtaking was really difficult. I did my best, but I used my rear tyre more than expected, and I finished in eighth position. It’s frustrating because I didn’t make any big mistakes. I was just losing out because of the lack of grip. Let’s see if we can find more grip in Austin.”
Darryn Binder – WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team, 18th
“I was really happy with how things went this morning. I felt like I made a good step in Warm Up, but unfortunately in the race, I wasn’t able to keep the same feeling. It was a really difficult race for me. I tried everything to keep a good rhythm and stay with the guys, but at the end of the race I was really struggling to keep the same pace as the other guys. I felt like the conditions were really different compared to this morning and the bike behaved a bit different. Anyway, it was a good learning experience, I take the positives and move on to America.”
Andrea Dovizioso – WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team, 20th
“I’m very disappointed, this never happened to me. I did a mistake and forgot to unlock the front start device. I locked it, but didn’t move the lever, I need to move to unload on the first corner. I didn’t think about that and though everything was blocked, but when I stopped in the pitlane, I realized, that this was my fault. I’m really sorry to the team, because this is something, that doesn’t need to happen, but it happens when you are not relaxed. I’m not comfortable, I’m not riding in a smooth way, not using the best potential of the bike and this is the tension. You want to do everything at the maximum from the start and I did this mistake. At least, my pace was pretty good in the end, but in any case, I can’t be happy about this weekend. I hope we can be closer in Austin.”
Franco Morbidelli – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP, DNF
“I had a tyre puncture and needed to stop. That’s unfortunate… We were not in a great position, but we were catching up. I felt that this morning I made a good step with the bike, so I would have been able to catch up, but then I had a puncture and had to stop.”
Massimo Meregalli – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP, Team Director
“It was a difficult race. It was definitely not what we expected and in some way we also had bad luck with Franco getting a tyre puncture, ending his race early. With Fabio we suffered from the fact that the track conditions were less grippy than before. This was especially noticeable at the beginning of the race, which cost Fabio a lot of positions. After that it was very difficult for him to manage the race. Overtaking in this kind of situation is complicated, but Fabio still salvaged some important points. Now we go to COTA, which is a completely different track that suits our bike better.”
Razlan Razali – WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Racing Team, Founder and Team Principal
“Today’s race was definitely not an easy one for both our riders. Andrea continued to face some technical difficulties. This time it’s more to a rider error with his front start device. He had to come in to get it fixed, so his race was basically over. But I’m sure he gave valuable data just to finish the race. While Darryn had some grip issues, but it was a great experience for him to be fighting with the other rookies again. The reduction of one day over the weekend definitely didn’t help our rookie this weekend, missing one day of practice, which is crucial for him to understand the bike better. For us the only way is to learn from this weekend and understand how the race went for both riders, to learn and do better for Austin next week.”
Gran Premio Michelin® de la República Argentina Results
- Aleix Espargaro – Aprilia Racing
- Jorge Martin – Pramac Racing +0.807
- Alex Rins – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR +1.330
- Joan Mir – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR +1.831
- Francesco Bagnaia – Ducati Lenovo Team +5.840
- Brad Binder – Red Bull KTM Factory Racing +6.192
- Maverick Viñales – Aprilia Racing +6.540
- Fabio Quartararo – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP +10.215
- Marco Bezzecchi – Mooney VR46 Racing Team +12.622
- Enea Bastianini – Gresini Racing MotoGP +12.987
- Luca Marini – Mooney VR46 Racing Team +13.962
- Takaaki Nakagami – LCR Honda IDEMITSU +14.002
- Miguel Oliveira – Red Bull KTM Factory Racing +14.456
- Jack Miller – Ducati Lenovo Team +14.898
- Alex Marquez – LCR Honda Castrol +23.472
- Raul Fernandez – Tech3 KTM Factory Racing +25.862
- Remy Gardner – Tech3 KTM Factory Racing +28.711
- Darryn Binder – WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team +28.784
- Stefan Bradl – Honda HRC +31.943
- Andrea Dovizioso – WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team +3 laps
- Fabio Di Giannantonio – Gresini Racing MotoGP 22 laps
- Pol Espargaro – Repsol Honda Team 14 laps
- Franco Morbidelli – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP 7 laps
- Johann Zarco – Pramac Racing 5 laps
2022 MotoGP World Championship Standings
- Aleix Espargaro – Aprilia Racing 45 points
- Brad Binder – Red Bull KTM Factory Racing 38 points
- Enea Bastianini – Gresini Racing MotoGP 36 points
- Alex Rins – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR 36 points
- Fabio Quartararo – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP 35 points
- Joan Mir – Team SUZUKI ECSTAR 33 points
- Miguel Oliveira – Red Bull KTM Factory Racing 28 points
- Johann Zarco – Pramac Racing 24 points
- Jorge Martin – Pramac Racing 20 points
- Pol Espargaro – Repsol Honda Team 20 points
- Jack Miller – Ducati Lenovo Team 15 points
- Franco Morbidelli – Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP 14 points
- Maverick Viñales – Aprilia Racing 13 points
- Francesco Bagnaia – Ducati Lenovo Team 12 points
- Marc Marquez – Repsol Honda Team 11 points
- Takaaki Nakagami – LCR Honda IDEMITSU 10 points
- Luca Marini – Mooney VR46 Racing Team 10 points
- Marco Bezzecchi – Mooney VR46 Racing Team 7 points
- Darryn Binder – WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team 6 points
- Alex Marquez – LCR Honda Castrol 4 points
- Andrea Dovizioso – WithU Yamaha RNF MotoGP Team 2 points
- Remy Gardner – Tech3 KTM Factory Racing 1 point
- Raul Fernandez – Tech3 KTM Factory Racing 0 points
- Fabio Di Giannantonio – Gresini Racing MotoGP 0 points
25. Stefan Bradl – Honda HRC 0 points
