Yamaha sinks at Mugello, Quartararo second-to-last and exhausted: 15 more GPs before the Honda switch

Disappointed and frustrated, the French rider after a difficult Italian GP: at the end of the weekend he didn’t hide that he’d reached the limit of his patience.

The weekend at Mugello was truly disastrous for Yamaha, which managed to collect just one point between the Sprint and the Race. It was earned by Jack Miller with Sunday’s fifteenth place, a day of total shipwreck also for Fabio Quartararo, who finished even second to last at the flag. Behind him only Michele Pirro, Ducati test rider called in to replace the injured Alex Marquez in the BK8 Gresini team. The 2021 MotoGP champion finished 34.335 seconds behind the winner, Marco Bezzecchi.

That the Italian Grand Prix could be complicated for the Iwata manufacturer had been anticipated: the long straight severely exposed the M1, which with the V4 engine is still not performing in terms of top speed. But even in the twisty sections, the limits of a technical package that today appears heavily unfinished came to light.

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Quartararo is very frustrated with how the Mugello weekend went, where once again he found himself powerless on a bike with no real potential: "I felt I could push a bit in the first laps – reports Motosan – but then the feelings got worse. If you ask me now, I’d say the motivation is gone. The truth is there’s no way to take anything positive from this Sunday. I tried to push a bit mid‑race, but I was so close to the limit that I decided to slow down. It didn’t make sense to waste so much energy fighting for a single point."

Taking risks just to get into the points made no sense for the French rider, who preferred to simply finish the race and think about the next ones: "I know that when we get to other tracks, I’ll probably feel better than here and I’ll get back to my level. But at the moment I’m very disappointed with the work done. I’m glad it’s over."

It was a real ordeal in Tuscany. After the encouraging results at Le Mans and Barcelona, he hoped to suffer a bit less at Mugello. Instead, he went back to having the awful feelings of the first four Grands Prix of 2026. Next weekend MotoGP returns to action in Hungary, at Balaton Park; we’ll see if the M1 will be a bit more competitive there. Doing worse than in Italy seems impossible.

Quartararo is already tired of this season and can’t wait for it to end. Unable to fight for significant results, he feels a lot of frustration, and this likely affects his contribution to Yamaha’s current project as well. Even though he recently announced he wanted to change his attitude, staying calmer and simply trying to do his best to help the team, it’s not at all easy to accept a situation so far from ideal.

Having been MotoGP world champion in 2021 and runner‑up in 2022, finding himself fighting for completely different results is complicated. Since 2023 Yamaha has suffered a clear decline; in 2025 it showed signs of recovery, but deciding to introduce the V4 engine inevitably compromised 2026, since it was unthinkable that the M1 would immediately be competitive with a type of power unit that the Iwata manufacturer had never adopted in MotoGP. With no notable progress in sight, it’s normal that Quartararo feels a lot of frustration and is eager to leave. In 2027–2028 he will race for the Honda HRC team: he hopes he has made the right choice and won’t find himself again in an unwelcome scenario. But there are still 15 Grands Prix to go before he takes off the blue suit for good.