If Fabio Quartararo starts again at the GP Styria, he will do so with 34 points ahead of Zarco and 47 points over Bagnaia. A nice cushion after four victories on which he can build his first world title.
Also in 2020 he got off to a great start to the season, only to finish the championship in eighth place, 44 points behind me. This year, however, the French appear to be more mature and faster, however His crew chief Diego Gubellini denies that the drop in performance last year was caused by the pressure.
“The biggest problem was actually technical – Gubellini told motorsportmagazine.com – Last year Fabio was very good on some tracks, but had great difficulties on others. Even if the 2020 bike looked very similar to the 2019 bike from the outside, many parts were different, so that even the feeling was far from the 2019 one.
Gubellini also explained the difference between the style of Jorge Lorenzo and that of Quartararo, as the two were often compared.
“Lorenzo was very fluid in his driving style and very quick in corners. That worked very well for the Yamaha, especially the Bridgestone tires. Fabio is similar there because he can keep a high cornering speed, but his style is different and typical of Fabio and the new generation of drivers is that they play a lot with body and balance, they shift the weight a lot to do it better cope with braking and acceleration phases. Lorenzo moved a lot on the bike, but sideways – left and right – because his goal was to increase the cornering speed. In this sense, Fabio moves a little less, but much more forwards and backwards. “
Such a weight compensation reduces the loss of grip when accelerating and the tendency of the bike to wheelie and contributes to less stress on the tires. With that in mind, Gubellini says that Fabio is closer to Marquez than Lorenzo. Sometimes he brakes with the bike upright, sometimes late in the curve, sometimes it’s a mixture of both.
“The braking phase is one of Fabio’s strengths – confirms Gubellini – The best thing is that while many drivers are really into braking or cornering speed, Fabio can do both at the same time. Or if he does not find his speed in the braking phase, it is due to the cornering speed or vice versa. It’s very important and it helps him to be strong on different tracks and in different conditions. “
For this reason, the driver and crew chief make few changes to the set-up at the weekend and leave the motorcycle almost identical between the tracks, because this is the only way the driver can gain confidence in the reactions.
“We try to work in different areas like electronics tuning. It is also important, especially with the Michelins, that the tires work in the right area. If we can’t solve a problem with the electronics or the tires, we think about the set-up. It’s very different than it used to be, but that’s how we prefer to work. “