The Petronas Yamaha SRT rider took the lead from second on the grid and was only overtaken by the eventual race winner and newly crowned six-time world champion in the premier class Marc Marquez on turn 3 on the last lap.
He tried to overtake Marquez in the last corner but ran too far and missed his first win by almost two tenths of a second.
He also lost to Marquez on the final lap at Misano after leading most of the race. fourth rare admits it was “really frustrating” to lose again but was still happy to fight the MotoGP “reference rider”.
“Definitely,” he replied when asked if his defeat at Misano or Thailand hurt more.
“At Misano I didn’t try anything in the last corner. I’ve tried something here.
“I passed him [Marquez]but I didn’t really know if he could come in and close [the line]and I saw his bike and it was really frustrating [as it] was close to the checkered flag.
“So really frustrating, but really happy to be fighting Marc because we know this year – apart from Austin [when he crashed] – he is always on the podium and has been the reference for MotoGP for many years. “
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In Misano, Marquez was able to study where Quartararo was strong while accompanying him and did the same on Sunday in Thailand.
Quartararo admits that he had no intention of changing that strategy to allow Marquez to take the lead for a while, saying that if he didn’t try a lunge in the last corner, he “wouldn’t sleep until Japan”.
“I knew I wanted to try something on the last corner,” he added.
“If not, I won’t sleep until [the] Japan [GP]. So we tried it to the last corner and are getting more experienced step by step.
“The strategy was the same” [as Misano]to lead the race and I felt good up front. “
That weekend, Yamaha gave Quartararo’s engine the 500 RPM it docked earlier this year to preserve mileage after being upgraded to current engines from the 2018 units it was supposed to run in the preseason.
Although the wins weren’t huge, he did notice the surge of power “a bit” on Buriram’s straights.
“Nobody was in front [in the race]so it was really hard to judge, ”he said of the extra 500 RPM.
“Of course for 26 laps [I noticed it] a little in the small straight, a little in the back straight.
“So it helps, and it’s a track that was really good for Yamaha. But we didn’t expect it to be this good as the Honda’s top speed has improved a lot this year.
“I’m really happy with the result and less than 0.2 seconds to win.”