The Grand Prix of Thailand Sprint was a tough battle for Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP’s Fabio Quartararo. After losing some ground in the opening stages, he pushed to the limit and finished the 13-lap dash in 10th place. Unable to make progress at the start, Álex Rins also had his work cut out for him. He took the chequered flag in 17th position.
Quartararo had gone through Q1 to take sixth place on the grid in Q2. After a bit of wrestling with Marco Bezzecchi on the opening lap, he completed it in seventh place. Then a moment with Brad Binder on the second lap lost the Frenchman momentum. He fell back to 15th place, but he wasn’t out for the count yet. He quickly overtook Maverick Viñales and Joan Mir, while Pedro Acosta had a fall on lap 4. It allowed El Diablo to fight for 11th place with Aleix Espargaró and make the overtake on lap 6. He then closed the gap to Jack Miller and snatched tenth position from him with 5 laps to go. Quartararo put in a heroic effort to close the over 3s gap to the three riders fighting for seventh place, but he came short by 0.791s to join the battle. He finished the Sprint in 10th, 14.483s from first.
Rins started from P17 and, like his teammate, lost a position on the opening lap. He struggled to stand his ground on cold tyres early on in the Sprint and found himself in 20th place after lap 2. With Acosta suffering a fall, the Yamaha man moved into 19th position. He upped his pace soon after and over the course of the remainder of the Sprint passed Takaaki Nakagami, Viñales, and Augusto Fernandez respectively on lap 8, 10, and 11. But Augusto Fernandez put up a fight in the final laps. The two battled their way to the finish line, with Augusto Fernandez regaining his position, so Rins completed the Sprint in 17th place, 21.413s from first.
Today’s results see Quartararo stay in 13th place in the overall standings with 93 points. Rins remains in 19th position with 23 points. Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP keep their 9th place in the team championship with 116 points, and Yamaha hold on to 4th position in the constructor’s championship with 104 points.
The team will be back in action tomorrow for Warm Up, held from 10:40-10:50 GMT +7*, and the 26-lap Race, which starts at 15:00.
*For Europe and some other countries, Daylight Saving Time ends on Sunday, 27 October 2024, at 3am (the clocks are turned back one hour to 2am).
Massimo Meregalli
Team Director
Qualifying went well for Fabio, and he was able to take sixth place on the grid, which is a good result for us. His start was good too, but Binder’s overtake lost him positions. Considering the pace that Fabio was able to maintain for the rest of the Sprint, this 13-lap dash could have ended differently for us. Álex was riding with a, for him, new setting, and that’s never easy, but it gave his crew some new data to work with. We will analyse everything carefully this evening. We think that we can improve on today’s results in the Race, so that’s our target for tomorrow.
Fabio Quartararo
Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider
Today was quite good, apart from lap 1 with Brad Binder, who overtook us a bit too aggressively. I lost a lot of positions. Q1 was nice, Q2 was good, and the pace in the Sprint race was also nice. It’s just a shame that I went wide, like I said, and lost five or more positions. But we can be happy with the pace we had today. I think we were a bit faster than the other guys I overtook, and I enjoyed it.
Álex Rins
Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider
It was tough. Today we put the same package as Fabio on our bike. This had some positive and some negative results. Fabio and I have different riding styles, so the next time we will try something different.
<
Discussion about this post