Fabio Quartararo is promising aggression in the Valencia race in his unlikely bid for a second straight MotoGP world championship title.
The Monster Energy Yamaha rider must win at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo to get enough points to overhaul Francesco Bagnaia but, even then, is relying on the Ducati pilot doing no better than 15th.
Quartararo missed the front row, but only by one position, whereas Bagnaia will line up on the middle of the third row after what has been a nervous weekend thus far for the Italian.
‘El Diablo’, or ‘The Devil’ in his native France, thus has a glimmer of hope even if the odds are still stacked against him.
“Tomorrow [Sunday] is a day to do whatever I want,” he declared.
“I am 23 points behind so it’s the only positive I can find.
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“My situation is to go all-in.
“I don’t need to prove anything. But I want to win. I need to be aggressive but intelligent.
“Of course, I have to go aggressively from the beginning.”
Those comments are ominous for Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez, who qualified on the middle of the front row and said he would “understand” if the #20 Yamaha crashes into him.
Quartararo may have been “over the limit”, to use his words, in Qualifying 2, as evidenced by his late off at Turn 2 just after setting his fastest lap of 1:29.900s.
However, if he does successfully get to the front of the field, then he can reasonably be expected to stay there given the consistency of his low- to mid-1:31s lap times in Free Practice 4.
“I think we have the possibility [to win the race],” said the 2021 champion.
“Our pace looks much better than the position we start on the race and yeah, looking forward to starting tomorrow.”
Race start is scheduled for Monday at 00:00 AEDT.
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