QUARTARARO AND FERNANDEZ REPORT FUEL-CONSUMPTION PROBLEMS IN MISANO

Fabio Quartararo’s San Marino Grand Prix ended with a hard-fought top-10 finish, but the Yamaha rider admitted the result was shaped by serious fuel-consumption problems that forced him to ride with reduced performance for much of the race.

After a difficult Sprint at Misano, where he crossed the line last with a gap of almost 25 seconds, Quartararo had reason to hope for improvement on Sunday. A grid penalty for Johann Zarco (LCR Honda) meant Quartararo could move forward in the starting order. He began the 27-lap Grand Prix from P12.

Quartararo said he was able to hold his position immediately after the start, then settled into a quieter rhythm in the middle of the pack. At times he was even running in ninth place. When the race concluded, he finished 10th, 23 seconds behind the winner, Marc Marquez on the Ducati.

Speaking about what went wrong, Quartararo pointed first to fuel usage. “I wasn’t so far away from the top-6. But during the race we had many problems with fuel consumption. I don’t know why. On my dashboard it was just flashing—crazy. That’s why I felt a bit lost,” he said. Despite the issues, he insisted the team and rider still extracted what they could: “I believe we got the maximum out and achieved the best possible result.”

In the media session, Quartararo elaborated on how the problem affected his ability to use the bike’s full power. “We can’t use all the power we have. I don’t know why, but I had big problems. I was very much in the red area. From the beginning I used less power than we have available. That’s why on the straights I was very slow,” he explained.

He also described the Yamaha’s three mapping options and how he managed them during the race. “On the bike I have three mappings: Mapping 1 is the fastest, number 2 is in the middle, and 3 gives the least power. Most of the laps I rode with mapping 3, which meant I was a bit under our potential. But I even did laps around 1:31.7 or 1:31.8—so I wasn’t that slow,” Quartararo said.

Asked whether switching to mapping 3 would extinguish the warning lights, he confirmed that the red signals remained. “No, they stayed on. If it’s red, it could mean you might not be able to finish the race,” he said. He added that the situation could have forced an unexpected stop: “It could have been that I had to come into the pits with an empty tank. I didn’t expect to have such big difficulties here, because normally it’s not a track where we have such big problems. But Austria will be very hard for us. We have to understand why our bike has such a high fuel consumption.”

The fuel theme was echoed by other riders at Misano. Trackhouse’s Raul Fernandez also struggled with the RS-GP’s ability to last the full distance, finishing sixth in the Grand Prix, 18.252 seconds behind Marquez. Fernandez said the race became mentally demanding because he had to manage both tyres and fuel: “Am Samstag wussten wir nach dem Sprint, dass uns am Sonntag der Vorderreifen Sorgen bereiten würde. Es hat dann aber auch mein Hinterreifen überhitzt und ich musste darauf achten, dass der Treibstoff bis zum Ende des Rennens reicht.” He added that from the second or third lap he began “to manage” the situation, explaining that he and the team hadn’t expected the fuel to become so tight.

Speedweek also reported that Fernandez believed the root of the problem lay earlier in the weekend. “Ich denke, dass die Ursache dafür im Qualifying lag,” he said, describing how pushing in the opening laps led to heavy fuel use and strong wear on the right flank of both tyres while trying to overtake. He said that, like Quartararo, he had access to three mapping options and tried the one that reduced consumption, but it still wasn’t enough: “Ab der dritten Runde war ich mit dem Mapping unterwegs, bei dem der Spritverbrauch am geringsten war. Das reichte aber nicht aus. Ich war am Limit.”

With the next round already approaching—immediately after San Marino, the MotoGP paddock moves to the Red Bull Ring for the Austrian Grand Prix—Quartararo and the Yamaha crew have little time to diagnose the issue. The report also noted that last year’s Yamaha riders experienced a “sporting disaster” at the Red Bull Ring, when the M1 was still powered by an inline four-cylinder engine.