Catalunya GP Moto2 – Fabio Quartararo (1st) had the best weekend of his career !

By a strange coincidence, the 2018 Catalan Grand Prix was won by the author of the pole position in the three categories: Enea Bastianini in Moto3, Jorge Lorenzo in MotoGP and Fabio Quartararo in Moto2. The driver from Nice, absent from the podium for three years, signs his first victory in the world championship.

Sensational ! Fabio Quartararo was dazzling for the GP of Catalonia on the Montmelo circuit, where he won his after having signed the pole, the best time in the warm-up and in the race. Full card for "El Diablo", who becomes – at 19 years and two months – the second youngest winner in Moto2 after Marc Marquez and the third French victor in this category with Jules Cluzel and Johann Zarco.

• MNC Live –
• MNC file : 

While he had not done better than eighth place since the start of the season (at the French GP), the HDR-Speed ​​Up team rider has shown himself intractable in Catalonia, despite a motorcycle considered to be behind compared to Kalex and KTM. On a regular basis, the n ° 20 stuck no less than 2.492 sec to the combative Miguel Oliveira and 3.485 sec to the very fast Alex Marquez, brother of whom you know !

"At the time, I didn’t really realize it: I had to repeat it to myself several times!" Confesses Fabio, who appears after his victory in 10th place in the provisional Moto2 standings. The wearer of n ° 20 – "demonized" on the number plate of his motorcycle! – 74 points behind Francesco Bagnaia (45 Vs 119), leader of the intermediate category with three wins in seven races.

"I won by starting from pole position, I think it was really the perfect weekend, the best of my career without doubt," he said. "We worked a lot to get there and, yes, it is a great satisfaction to achieve such a result after two complicated years".

The pressure to be compared with Marc Marquez

Because it is an understatement to say that this victory is experienced as a real deliverance by Fabio Quartararo, a young driver with a meteoric trajectory in the Spanish championship where he cut his teeth. With his total domination on the other side of the Pyrenees, the French attacked the Grands Prix in 2015 with very high ambitions … A little too high ?

• MNC Interview : Fabio Quartararo, with an extraordinary trajectory, enormous sacrifices

Everything started off perfectly for the young man from Nice, who impressed the whole paddock at the time -! – with its extremely thorough preparation. Fabio, then under the leadership of his Spanish manager Eduardo Martin, made a meteoric debut at just 16 years old, taking 7th place in his first Moto3 Grand Prix in, after having led several laps. !

Founded by Honda, "El Diablo" climbed on his first podium shortly after in Texas (United States), with the second of. His first pole came the next race, at the G in Jerez, where he became the second youngest driver to win a pole with just 32 days more than Marco Melandri, record holder since the 1998 German GP !

"In 2015, a lot of people compared me to Marc Marquez," recalls Fabio, rightly considered a potential phenomenon. "It was a big pressure, especially at this age I didn’t necessarily realize. I think I couldn’t take it … So this result that is happening is just magnificent.".

Sign of fate: this ideal trajectory saw its first gap during the 2015 French Grand Prix … The n ° 20, qualified on pole, made a mistake at Le Mans (72): this terrible curse which seems to be exercised on the French drivers at home – including Johann Zarco this year – brutally fell on the "little prince of the Grands Prix"…

Le Mans backlash 

This fall – his first in Grand Prix – put a stop to the machine: Fabio Quartararo did not finish the next race in Italy either, then finished a distant 14th place in Catalonia. The youngster seems to have recovered in the Netherlands with a new second place, before retiring in Germany and then in the Czech Republic…

The harshest blow will come at the 2015 San Marino Grand Prix, when he breaks his right ankle during free practice on the Italian circuit. Fabio Quartararo will be forced to give up the entire overseas tour, in addition to the Grand Prix of Aragon (Spain). Obviously disappointed, he finished his first GP season in 10th position, with two poles to his credit (Jerez and Le Mans).

On the advice of his mentor, Fabio Quartararo left Honda at the end of 2015 to join KTM: the French considered the Japanese motorcycle not competitive and inconstant enough. He joined the Leopard Racing team where his 2016 season ended far from his expectations, without a podium or pole (13th overall). The young man is in doubt…

This situation does not prevent him from making another daring bet: despite his lack of victory in Moto3, Fabio decides to "skip a class" and join Moto2 in 2017 with the Pons team! But the expected results do not follow – still – not: the French team again finished 13th overall, with a sixth place in Misano as the best result. 

The winning click in Catalonia ?

Hired by the Speed ​​Up team for 2018, Fabio Quartararo is starting his fourth season in the world with the obligation to straighten the bar: "It’s true that for three years, I had not signed any podium. I had never won worldwide, "he admits. The Nice coast, however still very young, is inexorably eroding for lack of concretization and consistency…

After a timid start in Qatar (20th), Argentina (22nd) then Texas (15th), Fabio is gaining momentum during the return from the Grands Prix in Europe with a remarkable entry into the Top 10 in Jerez. Eighth in France ahead of his compatriots, the n ° 20 confirms the following race in Italy with the 11th position.

"Since the Mugello, we have found very good set-up on the bike," he reveals to explain this rising results curve. "When I arrived in Jerez, I also decided to rethink my driving style a bit, whether it be on braking or out of a corner. And for the first time, I really felt like I was driving naturally at Barcelona ". 

The Frenchman, finally at ease on his motorcycle, won his first race in the world championship at a 2018 Catalan Grand Prix, totally under control. "We took a little while to find this method, but I think it is the right one. In any case it works!", Smiles Fabio Quartararo, to whom we must take our hat off for never giving up.

"We must now continue in this direction and there is no reason why the results should not follow", concludes the French driver, who will participate with Johann Zarco in the first French edition of the "Superprestigio Dirt Track" scheduled for 15 next December in the Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre (92). 

Fabio could meet again a certain Marc Marquez, to whom he was – too much? – often compared since the reigning MotoGP world champion "plans to make the trip" to this event according to its organizer Claude Michy, also promoter of the GP of France !

Related articles

• Analysis – Fabio Quartararo for the first time leader of a MotoGP race in the Netherlands –

  Fabio Quartararo for the first time leader of a MotoGP race in the Netherlands Another sensational weekend for French rookie Fabio Quartararo, who leaves…

• Analysis – Fabio Quartararo (8th) had the pace for a Top 5 at the French GP – Used YAMAHA

  Fabio Quartararo (8th) had the pace for a Top 5 at the French GP Fabio Quartararo again caused a sensation on his private Yamaha by securing the tour…

• Analysis – Quartararo had “the best time” of his life fighting with Marquez! – Used YAMAHA

  Quartararo had the best time of his life fighting with Marquez ! At only 20 years old, Fabio Quartararo won his fourth MotoGP podium yesterday at the San…

• Analysis – New top 10 for Fabio Quartararo at the 2019 MotoGP Italian GP –

  New top 10 for Fabio Quartararo at the 2019 MotoGP Italian GP Tenth yesterday at the arrival of the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello, the French debutant…

• Analysis – Fabio Quartararo “both disappointed and happy” after his retirement from the Spanish MotoGP GP –

  Fabio Quartararo both disappointed and happy after his retirement from the Spanish MotoGP GP The 2019 MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix offered a real emotional…

• Sport – Fabio Quartararo wins the first round of the CEV at Le Mans –

  Fabio Quartararo wins the first round of the CEV at Le Mans Fabio Quartararo, the young French prodigy who is wreaking havoc in the Spanish motorcycle…

• Analysis – Fabio Quartararo takes his first MotoGP podium! –

  Fabio Quartararo gets his first MotoGP podium ! Qualified in pole position at the 2019 MotoGP Catalunya GP after excellent testing, Fabio Quartararo…

• Analysis – Catalan GP: Ramirez’s first success in Moto3 and Marquez’s hat-trick in Moto2 –

  Catalan GP: Ramirez’s first Moto3 success and Marquez’s hat-trick in Moto2 Marcos Ramirez’s first victory this weekend at the Catalan GP brings to twelve…

• Analysis – Fabio Quartararo (crash at the first corner): “It’s a shame, but above all I hope that Andrea Dovizioso is doing well” –

  Fabio Quartararo (crash at the first corner): It’s a shame, but above all I hope that Andrea Dovizioso is doing well Impressive during all the weekend…

• 16-19 – Japanese GP – Fabio Quartararo, disqualified winner of the Moto2 Japanese GP 2018 –

  Fabio Quartararo, disqualified winner of the Moto2 Japanese GP 2018 The Japanese Moto2 Grand Prix yesterday took on the appearance of Japanese torture…