Shock twist: huge penalty for Quartararo—what happened?

Quartararo thwarted by a sensor, 16” penalty and goodbye points at Silverstone. The reason for the sanction at the end of the MotoGP race.

Fabio Quartararo finished the GP at Silverstone in 12th place, but here’s the blow that knocks him out of the points: a sensor not properly connected to the front wheel, resulting in a 16-second penalty that drops the Yamaha rider to 16th place, even behind test rider and wild card Augusto Fernandez. When it really has to pour when it rains...

These are the words in the official document: “At the end of the race, the bike was taken to Technical Control. During the inspection, it was found that the pressure logger had not been properly configured to receive tyre pressure data from the front sensor. The sensor ID had not been registered in the logger’s database, resulting in no actual data being recorded for the front tyre during the race.”

It had already been a weekend without glory and to be filed away, as has been happening for some time for this pairing once capable of winning the MotoGP title. It feels like a distant past, given the current situation. Quartararo also struggled with the tyres, on top of all the chronic problems of a very immature V4 project that isn’t delivering the hoped-for results. All the Yamahas are in trouble; just look at the standings of any GP to see where they are...

The factory Monster Energy Yamaha team goes home empty-handed, since Alex Rins retired immediately due to a first-lap crash. The triple-tuning-fork brand salvages something with the Pramac duo and with test rider Augusto Fernandez, who, thanks to Quartararo’s demotion, moves up to 15th, the last points-paying position. The Frenchman has not hidden that he’s already thinking about the future with Honda, but first the goal is to finish as well as possible with Yamaha—or rather, to limit the damage. Unfortunately for him, not this time...

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