Quartararo ‘not worried’ about MotoGP rider market standing amidst form dip

The 2021 world champion is one of the big figures on the rider market for 2025 as his current Yamaha deal expires at the end of the 2024 season.

Quartararo has already admitted he has held talks with other manufacturers over his future as Yamaha continues to struggle for form following a winless 2023.

After struggling to 11th in the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix two weeks ago, Quartararo said Yamaha was “further than ever” from its rivals.

Ahead of this weekend’s Portugal GP – an event he has won twice in the premier class – Quartararo says the noise surrounding his future is not a distraction for him.

“I’m not thinking about the contracts,” he said on Thursday at the Algarve International Circuit.

“Basically… of course, as you know, we have already had some talks with some brands.

“But it’s not a distraction for me. It’s information that I don’t have in my mind while I’m riding, thinking ‘ok, this is what we have on the table’.

“It’s something that I’m in a position where I don’t think I’m bad.

“For me, bad is when I was in Moto2 where I had not really any place to go in the next year. Then you start to worry. But in the position I am, I don’t have to worry.”

Watch: Top 5 Portuguese GP iconic moments

Though his future situation is not a distraction, Quartararo did tell motogp.com on Thursday that he will make a decision quickly.

“It will be soon,” he said. “Exact date I don’t know, but I will not spend months to take a decision. So, it will be quite quick and we will see.”

Despite the difficult start to his 2024 season, Quartararo is putting a positive spin on it and the job Yamaha is doing in gathering data to improve its YZR-M1 – admitting it is “not ready yet” to be racing.

“The gap increased [to the others], but being honest for me in Qatar we were still testing many, many things,” he added.

“We are not ready yet. Even last year things weren’t going right but we had nothing really to test.

“And this is what we had and that’s it. But the mentality has totally changed even during the race weekend, where we [say] ‘ok, we change that, we change that’ and we changed many things during the race weekend and I think it’s positive.

“For me at the moment, to finish P10 or P11 is the same, but if I can help the team to really make some steps forward for later to fight for the top five, I prefer to do many, many things right now.”

Yamaha will remain in Portugal on Monday to carry out a private test and is expected to do so at most European rounds this year.