FABIO QUARTARARO quickly dispelled any notion the summer hiatus would stutter his MotoGP momentum as ended the first day back in action quickest of all during FP2 at Brno.
An increasingly customary position for the young French rookie to find himself in after three pole positions from the opening nine races of his career, Quartararo nevertheless had to come from way back in 18th in FP1 to shine in FP2.
Surging to the front with a late soft tyre effort on his Petronas SRT Yamaha, Quartararo was comfortably quicker than Marc Marquez on the Repsol Honda to give both himself and the Malaysian-backed team reason to be confident heading into Saturday’s all-important qualifying session.
Fabio Quartararo Back to 100%
"I’m close to 100% and not having many problems with my arm,” he said referring to the arm pump surgery he underwent in June. “I don’t have any pain at all with it, and felt good in both sessions. We struggled a little bit with the tyres today as we’ve been working with all three compounds, so the plan for tomorrow is to concentrate on one option for the race.
“It looks like the soft has a big step from the other two, and I think we need to analyse our data to see if we can use it in the race. But first, my goal for tomorrow is to be on the front two rows of the grid as we know that Brno can be a difficult track to overtake on.”
Closing in on Rossi...
Despite suffering his first crash-prompted DNF of the season at the Sachsenring, Quartararo is eighth in the overall standings, only 18 points shy of factory Yamaha rider Maverick Vinales in fifth and 13 points behind Valentino Rossi.
