Fabio Quartararo receives penalty after disobeying orders during French GP

Quartararo's French GP weekend has gotten worse despite starting positively with a pole position

Yamaha MotoGP rider Fabio Quartararo has been penalised with a 10-minute suspension of the British Grand Prix’s opening practice session following an incident at Le Mans.

After crashing at Turn 14 during the French GP, Quartararo was deemed to have disobeyed direct orders from the marshals, resulting in the penalty at the upcoming Silverstone weekend. He has also been fined €2,000.

This comes after the French rider heartbreakingly crashed out on the fourth lap of his home race, which fellow Frenchman Johann Zarco eventually won,

But the 2021 world champion was still upbeat following the contest having started on pole and led for much of the race until his crash.

He said: “When it was starting to rain, I wanted to push like hell in the first laps. Made one long lap and still was really close to Marc [Marquez] there. But, it was just raining a little bit more, and I had not even one moment of the rear and just completely lost the front.

“We gave our best. I didn’t expect really to lose it like that, but it is what it is and we gave our maximum this weekend.

“In Le Mans, it’s always like that. You never know if it’s going to rain, if it’s going to stop. But it was light rain, and it was really really little, so I pushed quite a lot in the beginning, and it was great.

“A shame, but I really enjoyed the weekend. I think that we have managed to get great, great pace, and great lap times.”

Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

Quartararo continued saying he knew it was going to be difficult to finish on the podium and that he would have to push from the beginning.

He added: “Changing bike, then start from double long lap, it was a bit complicated. But I think that it was the good choice to start with the slicks, because we were quite fast in the beginning, then see what we could achieve in the race, but we crashed.

“Today, conditions were really tricky, and like I said, I wanted to make a bet and try to push hard from the beginning. We had a good advantage, but unfortunately we lost it quite quickly.”

Speaking on the record-breaking crowd attendance at Le Mans this year, Quartararo said: “I think the crowd is crazy here.

“We can see from Thursday that they were full, they were supporting us. And I think that it’s great for all the French fans to see this atmosphere.”

He also offered his congratulations to Zarco, saying: “Unfortunately from my side I didn’t win, but I can imagine the feeling of Johann and of course, congratulations to him.”