Quartararo “can’t understand” missing wet feeling at Misano

The championship leader has repeatedly aired his struggles with the 2021 Yamaha in wet conditions and little improvement appeared to be made on Friday at Misano following a soaked FP2.

Quartararo slid from eighth in the mostly dry FP1 to 18th in the fully wet FP2, finishing behind new teammate Franco Morbidelli – who has been absent since June and hadn’t ridden the 2021 M1 before Friday – and over two seconds off the pace.

The Frenchman says 18th is “not real”, but concedes his current form in wet is only good enough for 12th at the best – while nearest title rivals Francesco Bagnaia and Joan Mir were second and fourth.

Asked if his problems were down to the track, he said: “No, because that’s what I said before. I had that kind of feeling, but looking at the data, the temperatures were right. 

"We need to analyse, we found a set-up and it was a little bit better on the feeling.

“We’re still two seconds from the top man, but for me our position is not real now. For me, our positing right now was in the top 12.

“But still in 2019 I made all of my wet practices in the wet in the top 10 and I can’t understand why I can’t have this feeling back.

“Let’s see what we can do and what we can improve for the next session in the wet.”

Quartararo added that he has “zero feeling” in Misano’s fast corners despite a new set-up offering him a better feeling than he’s had in the wet previously this year.

“So, we tried a totally different setting this afternoon,” he said.

“It was a little bit better. It’s a shame because I missed my last lap because I improved my lap time, but I made not even one of my fastest sectors.

“So, we have a little bit of margin and I think the way we improved a little bit was better.

“It was a little bit better, but still I’m not feeling comfortable on the bike.

“I feel we make a small step in front because my feeling is better, but I have zero feeling in the fast corners, so it’s tough.

“It’s tough, let’s see what we can do, but at the moment we are struggling quite a lot.”