The three-time MotoGP race winner made his on-track debut as a works Yamaha team rider at Losail on Saturday, finishing the day in 15th place after completing the most laps of all at 69.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused tests to start later than normal this year and the Sepang test to be canceled in February.
Quartararo was one of a group of current riders who hit the Barcelona circuit last month to test a road bike in preparation for a return to MotoGP.
When Quartararo left the Qatar test by 1.1 seconds behind on Saturday, he admitted that it took him a while to jump from a Yamaha R1 to an M1 to get his head around.
“It was a cool day, actually I’m really happy,” said Quartararo.
“I had a lot of trouble getting used to the M1 again. I honestly think so [it took me] more than half a day because I was totally lost when I switched from R1 to M1.
“In the end I’m happy because the feeling was great at the end, we’re doing a pretty good test. [It] It feels good to be on the works team. I like the atmosphere and I think we will improve step by step. “
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Despite a freeze on engine development for 2021, Yamaha announced at its launch event last year that its engineers in Japan had developed a number of updates to tests.
Quartararo tried the new chassis on Saturday but said that due to its rustiness it was impossible to know if it was an improvement over the 2020 version.
“We tested the bike’s new chassis, but like I said, I had half a day to really get my bike back,” he said when Motorsport.com asked if he had tried new parts on Saturday.
“So I can’t really tell if it was better or not.
“We’ll have another day to test properly [on Sunday] and i can feel the details a little more
“But the lap time was slower, I didn’t do 100%. So [Sunday] We’ll have a better chance of discovering the bike. “
Also, when asked to comment on his new factory environment, he felt it was too early to make a detailed comment, other than the fact that he has had more people around over the past two seasons than at Petronas SRT.