Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP‘s Fabio Quartararo put in a strong bid for pole in today‘s Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland Q2 session but just came 0.011s short after yellow flags hindered his final laps. He secured 2nd place on the grid. Maverick Viñales shared similar misfortune in Q1. He ended that session in 11th place and will start tomorrow‘s race from the 21st spot on the grid.

The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP riders both started today‘s qualifying sessions with fierce determination, but Fabio Quartararo and Maverick Viñales both were forced to roll out of laps due to yellow flags. They will start tomorrow‘s Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland from 2nd and 21st place respectively.

Quartararo was keen on having fun in today‘s Q2 session whilst trying to go for pole. His first flyer was cancelled due to exceeding track limits, but his second one was a solid 1‘20.437s, putting him in the lead.

With eight minutes still on the clock, El Diablo entered pit lane on his way to a fresh set of tyres. Two minutes later, the YZR-M1 rider was back out, looking forward to shave yet more time off his provisional pole lap. He ran into traffic on his next try, as he was getting his tyres ready for action, but then set a 1‘20.247s on lap 7/9, that put him on pole. However, he was later pushed back to second. The Frenchman was keen on giving it another go, but yellow flags denied him the chance to fight for pole. He ended the session 0.011s from first.

Viñales had planned to put in a time attack in the latter stages of this morning's FP3, but suffered a crash in Turn 1. Though perfectly okay to continue, he didn't manage to secure a spot for Q2. He waited for most of his fellow Q1 riders to head out ahead of him before commencing his 15-minute shoot-out. His first time-attack attempt moved him up to sixth place. When the pace quickened, the number-12 rider dropped to 12th, but his next lap put him in 7th, and he gained another position after hot lap number three.

Top Gun then headed back to the pits. At the time, he was in sixth place and needed to find 0.381s to take over the top spot. With four and a half minutes to go, he started his challenge. Just when the Spaniard was setting red and orange sectors, yellow flags in Turn 13 spoiled his lap. Unable to make moves on his last attempt, he ended Q1 in 11th place, with a 1‘21.165s, set on lap 4/9. His best effort put him 0.521s off the session‘s fastest time, and he will start tomorrow‘s race from 21st place on the grid.


Fabio Quartararo

"It was really tough. I was not feeling so good on the bike today, actually the whole weekend we‘ve been struggling a little bit, like all Yamahas. But I managed to get in a quite good lap. On my first lap of the second run there were many riders on track, but I managed to do a good second lap and we're not far from pole. I gave my 100% and that‘s the best I could do, so I‘m happy. Tomorrow we will try to make the best possible start to the race. We have a good pace, so we‘ll see what we can do in the race."

Maverick Viñales

"I don‘t exactly know where the problem lies, but we are working on it. It‘s difficult to say anything else about it at the moment. We are trying, working on the bike. We are working on corner speed as well. We are struggling on that point, the turning of the bike. We will keep going and improving, and then we will see what we can do tomorrow."

Massimo Meregalli - Team Director

"Today didn‘t go according to plan for us. Starting with the positives: Fabio has great race pace. If it hadn‘t been for the many yellow flags, he might have been able to bridge the 0.011s gap to pole. But starting from second place is very positive, especially considering that this is not one of his favourite tracks. Maverick, on the other hand, had a really tough day at the office. He suffered a crash in FP3 right before he wanted to start his time attack, and it all went downhill from there. He had to take part in Q1 and never really found the right feeling after that, so we need to restore his confidence with the bike for Sunday. We expect that the 30-lap race here tomorrow in these hot temperatures will be very hard, mainly due to tyre management at this track's long left corners. We will be working on some final setting changes that we can try in tomorrow‘s Warm Up, which will hopefully give our riders extended tyre life for the race."