2024-02-05 09:05:12
Following the usual trend of recent years, Yamaha has taken advantage of the break between the Shakedown and the start of the official IRTA tests in Malaysia to present there, at the same Sepang Circuit, the colors that Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins’ motorcycles will wear this season, a year in which, once again, the Iwata factory will only have two prototypes on the grid.
For the Frenchman, 2024 will be his fourth season in the ranks of the official Yamaha team, and who knows if it won’t also be his last; Pending renewing his contract – which expires in December of this year – in 2023, Fabio signed his worst season since competing in MotoGP with a final tenth place, undoubtedly a disappointment for a rider who in 2021 had been proclaimed world champion of MotoGP. the premier category and runner-up the following year.
Without victories in all of 2023, Fabio Quartararo has already insisted on more than one occasion that Yamaha has the first races of this new campaign to convince you about its renewal. The 24-year-old rider knows that, by 2025, most factories will renew their pits, and if Yamaha does not respond in this first half of the year, he has a very good chance of losing what has been his best rider in the last five years. the only one who has been able to repeat the success achieved by Jorge Lorenzo in 2015.
“I start the tests motivated. There are many new people in the team,” Fabio said in the presentation. “Before starting you always want to get back on the bike, we will have many tests and races. We will go step by step. I hope that here in Malaysia we take a step forward compared to last year. I want to start with confidence. Personally, winning again is my goal, it’s the only thing I have in mind, winning. I want to get it with Yamaha. It is important not to skip steps, 2023 was very hard, we cannot wait to start fighting for the title and victories. Step by step, first fight for podiums. “My goal is to win and be champion, but know that there is a lot of work ahead.”
About Alex Rins, Quartararo considers the Catalan “A very fast driver, I have known him for a long time. He was one of the first drivers I met when I arrived in Spain when I was 7 years old. He has had good races and victories, I think that both I and Yamaha have high expectations for Alexyour comments about the bike will surely help us.”
On the other side of the box, Alex Rins faces what will be his third adventure with a different manufacturer in MotoGP. After his long stay at Suzuki and his brief time at the LCR Honda Team, the Spanish rider aspires to everything on his new Yamaha YZR-M1, a prototype that already left a good taste in his mouth in his first contact in Valencia, three months ago now.
The 28-year-old rider is convinced that the M1 philosophy fits perfectly with his riding style, and now that Yamaha has concessions to develop the bike practically without limits throughout 2024, Rins is firmly committed to doing great things with this bike.
#42 claims to be “Fully prepared, eager to start this adventure. It is a dream come true to be here, a team with so much history and important names. “I feel ready and recovered,” points out the Spaniard, whose leg still bothers him a little “with the change of time”although it is something that does not affect him on the motorcycle.
“In the accident I lost a lot of bone, and that takes a lot of time,” Rins remembers. “But this winter I have trained normally, I have ridden with the R1M on the circuit, I was in Almería and Valencia. I didn’t feel any pain, that’s important. My first impression of the team in Valencia was very good, I felt comfortable, it gave the impression that they wanted to improve the bike and its results. “I’m ready to bring all my experience and make this bike competitive.”
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Just one day before the IRTA test in Malaysia begins, today we have been able to see the colors that Quartararo and Rins will use in this exciting campaign that will begin the weekend of March 9 and 10 under the lights of the Losail Circuit, a total of 21 competition weekends -42 races- to decide the name of the 2024 MotoGP world champion.
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