Francesco Bagnaia and Fabio Quartararo started the season as the two championship favourites, but if you’d attempted to plot out the campaign during pre-season testing, there’s no way you’d have come close to predicting the year we ended up getting.
Far from a titanic duel from the outset, both started the year way off the pace and downcast about their chances. They then took it on turns dominating the field in long stints until we got our three-race shootout to end the season.
But really campaigns can’t be segmented as neatly as that. They may have started the final stanza almost level on points, but the momentum that had waxed and waned between them had already set up an almost inevitable conclusion.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSFabio Quartararo has praised title leader Francesco Bagnaia for closing the 91-point gap between them despite lamenting his Yamaha’s lack of pace leaving him fighting with one hand behind his back.
Quartararo starts the title-deciding Valencia Grand Prix this weekend with a 23-point deficit and an extremely narrow path to a second world championship.
The Frenchman has been vociferous about Yamaha’s shortcomings this year despite a bright start to the season that propelled him to an early points lead.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTSFabio Quartararo has been cursed by his own pre-season prophecy of non-competitiveness on his outgunned Yamaha M1.
Only a brief spell of success in the middle of the year threatened to disprove his prediction from way back during pre-season testing. Since the midseason he’s been forced to helplessly watch on as other riders chipped away at the points lead he’d toiled so hard for.
This weekend comes his final reckoning.
Continue reading on FOX SPORTS