– P6 in qualifying on Saturday morning, P9 in the sprint on Saturday afternoon, P7 in the Grand Prix on Sunday: Fabio Quartararo once again pulled the chestnuts out of the fire for Yamaha at the MotoGP weekend of the German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring.
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That he was the best Yamaha rider and thus also left the second Japanese brand, namely Honda, completely behind, is not a reason for Quartararo to jump for joy. The 2021 MotoGP world champion, for whom the current season is the eighth and final one on a Yamaha, has been waiting for a top-3 result in a Sunday race since April 2025 (Jerez), and for a win even since June 2022 (Sachsenring).
At this year’s Sachsenring weekend, Quartararo especially enjoyed one discipline, namely qualifying. “Yes, qualifying was fun,” he refers to his strong Q2 lap, which earned him a place in the second starting row for the sprint and the Grand Prix.
In the sprint, however, Quartararo dropped a few positions right at the start, from sixth to ninth. He finished in exactly this ninth position after 15 laps. What was the reason for the early loss of three positions?
“It was a tough fight with [Jorge] Martin,” says Quartararo and reports: “In turn 3 we almost collided, in turn 5 we touched, and in turn 8 he was very optimistic. But I’m not complaining, that’s racing. I came out of turn 7 extremely poorly, although the grip was actually good. That’s how Jorge, ‘Pecco’ [Bagnaia], and Acosta overtook me. From then on, I rode the entire race in one position.”
In the Grand Prix on Sunday, Quartararo finished in P7. Realistically, however, ninth place would have been possible that day as well, as he explains: “My goal was P9, because the pace was exactly the same as the day before. Because Alex [Marquez] and ‘Diggia’ crashed, it ended up being P7, but yes, the goal for the day was P9.”
“Of course we want more, but that’s just the level we have,” says Quartararo, who does not expect any more updates from Yamaha for the rest of the season. When asked whether there would be new parts in the second half of the season, he simply shook his head on Sunday at the Sachsenring.
So Quartararo has to console himself with the fact that qualifying, where as a rider he can still make more of a difference than over a race distance, was once again the highlight of his weekend. “Qualifying went really well here, I have to say, much better than expected. Over the distance, I was clear that Martin, ‘Pecco’ and Acosta have a better pace than us,” said the former world champion who will switch from Yamaha to Honda at the end of the season.
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The problem that Quartararo saw over the distance at the Sachsenring he describes as follows: “Apart from qualifying, I couldn’t enjoy it. Especially in the second sector, the others pulled away from me because they have more grip and better turning. We need to be stronger in this area, but we can’t find a solution.”
By “the others,” Quartararo basically means all other manufacturers except Honda. Because the four riders of a Honda RC213V finished behind him in both the sprint and the Grand Prix in Germany. That among the other manufacturers, Ducati in particular was better positioned than Yamaha at the Sachsenring, was also noticed by Jack Miller.
Miller, who rides in the Yamaha satellite team Pramac, surprisingly made it into the Q2 segment of qualifying already in Friday’s practice, unlike Quartararo. There he placed a strong fifth. When he stuck to the rear wheel of the factory Ducati of weekend dominator Marc Marquez the next day in Q2, Miller realized something.
“With every acceleration, he got the power better onto the ground. I’m not talking about pure engine power here, but about traction. At the first moment when he opened the throttle, he was always a bit better than me. Our pure cornering speed is not that bad and the braking is even really good. We just have to find something more when it comes to getting the power onto the ground,” Miller’s analysis.
However: Just like for Quartararo, who switches to Honda after the 2026 season, Miller’s days on a Yamaha M1 are also numbered. For the Australian, there is no place in the Pramac team for 2027, because Izan Guevara, who currently rides for the Pramac team in the Moto2 World Championship, is coming on board as the new teammate of Toprak Razgatlioglu.
Alex Rins also has no future at Yamaha. The current teammate of Quartararo must, like Miller, look for a new place and inevitably look outside the MotoGP World Championship. Rins is already talking to teams in the Superbike World Championship, but nothing is finalized yet.
What is finalized, however, is that the Yamaha MotoGP factory team will start in 2027 and 2028 with Jorge Martin and Ai Ogura MotoGP 2027: Who rides where? All changes and contracts at a glance.
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