Franco Morbidelli promised a lot while at Yamaha’s satellite team, even being runner-up in 2020. However, since joining the factory team he has been a long way from the top of MotoGP, whilst his team-mate Fabio Quartararo is making consistent strides towards a second title.
Asked if he feels he is close to riding the YZR-M1 competitively even on a soft tyre, the Italian-Brazilian explained that he still has to make this riding his own consistently: ‘Today, until a few minutes from the end, yes, but it’s not my natural style yet. So I still can’t replicate it constantly. I need to do a good process in myself to absorb this style and put it on the track every lap, make it mine’.
Something Morbidelli is now well aware of is that he must change his riding style in order to be fast on the Yamaha: ‘I have understood one important thing, which is: to be fast on this bike, I need to change. I need to change, even though I know that my riding style works in some conditions and with a certain type of chassis, I need to change. Because I ride this chassis, I ride this bike, I’m in this team. I want to change.’
According to #21, the changes he has to make are considerable and are not limited to the riding itself: ‘When you need to change this kind of thing, it’s complicated. It’s complicated and… you need to change a lot of things, maybe even your personality, I don’t know. You need to change a lot, a lot, but I think it’s going to be a fun process. Let’s see if I can do it.’
Finally, Morbidelli stated that he needs to have a more aggressive riding, needing to go through a process of adaptation that will not be done overnight: ‘To extract that kind of potential you need to be aggressive, you need to be hard, and I more soft than hard when I ride. But like I said, I need to change. I’m going to do it as quickly as possible, but it’s going to be a process.’