MotoGP, Quartararo: "I had no grip and kept sliding. The conditions were extreme."

The seventh place obtained in the Sprint Race had led Fabio Quartararo into thinking that in the GP the result might have been similar and instead his first weekend of the season in Thailand ended with a meager fifteenth position far from expectations and not particularly auspicious for the next World Championship round scheduled in two weeks for Argentina.

"From the beginning we had grip problems. I thought it was related to the tire temperature, but even after three laps the situation did not improve. I couldn't lean the bike and kept sliding, so I lost a lot of positions. Unfortunately, I was not able to have a good race and keep a good pace. It was tough," he had to admit.

The tires played a crucial role in this debacle. "I had opted for the hard - soft combination, but the hard made me suffer a lot and the softs did not help us even in the first few laps," he revealed.

The high temperatures did the rest. "At the finish line my left leg was burning. There were extreme conditions. You don't often encounter such heat, maybe a few less laps would have made the show worse, but for us riders they were the limit. I honestly don't know if we will be back here in 2026 at this time of year. In testing it was 4-5 degrees cooler and it was better. Had there been any talk in the Safety Commission about shortening the race? No, that's a subject that came up on Saturday afternoon. I personally would have agreed to run a few fewer laps," were his words.

At one point clouds appeared in the sky that should have helped. "I didn't notice and then I had a lot of bikes in front, so the heat was strong anyway," El Diablo added before concluding with an indication about the upcoming Argentine round. "It will be complicated for us. Tracks with low grip are not in our favor, however, with different tires and the usual carcass we might do better," he concluded with a thread of hope.