For the third meeting of this 2026 season of MotoGP, Fabio Quartararo and Johann Zarco had high hopes, quickly dashed in Austin.
A difficult weekend in Texas: that is what Fabio Quartararo and Johann Zarco experienced for this third meeting of the season. Not very impressive at the beginning of the year, the two riders from Maralpin do not have the most competitive bikes on the grid, and it shows. Their goal lies elsewhere: to prove their worth by finishing as the best riders of their brand.
In qualifying, the riders from the French Riviera were very frustrated not to have reached Q2. Only 15th and 16th, the rest of the weekend was looking complicated. Johann Zarco was even beaten by his young teammate Diogo Moreira by just over a tenth. Fabio Quartararo, on the other hand, failed to pull off the perfect lap he is used to. The rider from Nice still remained the best Yamaha rider, proving that the bike is absolutely not on level.
At the start of the sprint race, which only consisted of ten laps, the two Frenchmen stayed one behind the other while each gaining a position. More comfortable than his counterpart from Nice, Johann Zarco managed to gain several positions to reach 11th place, far from the Top 10 and the official Hondas. While it seemed difficult to achieve more consistently, the rider from Cannes took advantage of fallers ahead to snatch the point for ninth place. A good result, as he acknowledged at the finish line: “I improved my pace as the laps went on, so if we take the positive, it’s that I was able to set good lap times from the fourth to the ninth lap. But, well, the pace in the low 2’02s is not there. I’m trying to understand what I can do better on this track and how I can provide feedback to stabilize the bike, but also to ride it properly.”
In the Yamaha box, however, the sprint took place without surprises. A not very exciting race, perhaps even slightly less difficult than Fabio Quartararo expected: “I expected worse regarding the pace. But I think everyone was faster than I expected.” Always more or less eight tenths behind the best laps in the race, there was nothing better to aim for than 11th place, three seconds from the points.
Another crash for Johann Zarco
Expectations for this Grand Prix were not very high. While tire management would be crucial, the pure performance of our Maralpin riders’ machines did not promise a good result. After a jostled start, Fabio Quartararo—who had gained a few places—quickly fell back into line. Johann Zarco, meanwhile, was battling with Luca Marini’s official Honda before crashing in the second lap. Although he managed to rejoin the race in last position, there was nothing more to hope for, unlike the day before.
On his side, Fabio Quartararo continued the sad internal championship within Yamaha. The Japanese machines, unable to match the pace of the 15th place, once again looked pathetic on a track where, nonetheless, the many fast corners could have suggested better performance. It was not to be.
The only thing to do to earn a small point was to wait for a failure ahead. Ultimately, it was the retirement of Japanese rider Ai Ogura, victim of a mechanical problem, that offered the last point to the first of the Japanese bikes. Long the holder of this 15th place, Fabio Quartararo, left more than 25 seconds behind the day’s winner, was finally overtaken by Pramac’s Turkish rider, Toprak Razgatlıoğlu, in the satellite team that had better managed its tires. To top it off, the other Pramac rider, Jack Miller, also ended up passing El Diablo, who had no more tire left at the finish (17th). The two official Yamaha bikes finished last in this Grand Prix, excluding Johann Zarco, a lap down, who nonetheless completed the race to gather data.
It remains to be hoped that the return to Europe in a month’s time will give the team from Nice the opportunity to try to turn things around. The meeting is set in Jerez on April 26. Until then, it’s not unthinkable that we might see an announcement of a transfer in the camp of No. 20…
