Marquez Fends Off MotoGP Rookie to Conquer Spielberg with Austrian GP Win
Marc Marquez scored his first Austrian GP win at the Red Bull Ring, beating rookie Fermin Aldeguer and Marco Bezzecchi after an up-and-down 28-lap race.
Fabio Quartararo has urged Yamaha to accelerate the debut of its long-awaited V4 engine project after one of the manufacturer’s worst weekends in recent MotoGP history.
Yamaha’s Red Bull Ring performance left all four of its riders trailing at the very back.
Quartararo described the Austrian GP as “a nightmare” and said the result underlined just how urgently the factory needs a major step forward.
“We have to forget Austria, at least for me,” Quartararo said on Thursday in Hungary.
“But the engineers cannot forget it. I hope they find answers because it was ridiculous.”
“All four of us expect something, and I don’t want that to happen again.”
Yamaha remains the only manufacturer on the grid persisting with an in-line four, an engine layout its riders have long blamed for their lack of performance.
Work on a V4 began last year, with only test riders Augusto Fernandez, Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow logging laps so far.
The expectation was that factory riders would finally get their first taste of the bike at September’s Misano test, but Quartararo made clear he would have preferred an earlier outing.
“I wanted to test it before Misano. But I think they are late in development.”
“Probably they felt the bike was not ready, not good enough for me to try. Of course, I don’t decide – but I wanted to test it already.”
Asked whether he would consider racing the V4 before the end of the season, Quartararo admitted it depended on performance but didn’t rule it out.
“If I try it and I’m less than half a second slower than with the current bike, then it’s a good step,” he explained.
“That would mean we can already work with it. We need a change, and racing it could help us understand where we stand.”
The Frenchman also pointed to Yamaha’s continuing deficit in straight-line performance, something Austria exposed quite brutally.
“In Austria, we couldn’t even use the little power we have. We had to reduce it to stop the bike sliding – I never experienced that before.”
“Of course, we need more power, because overtaking in MotoGP is impossible without it. Even if the bike is fast in one lap, I need it to fight in the race.”
He admitted he was unsure whether the V4 programme was being handled by a completely new engineering group or by many of the same staff who had worked on the current M1.
“Maybe some people are different, but not everyone,” he said, hinting at doubts over whether Yamaha has truly changed direction.
The Hungarian GP offers a clean slate on a brand-new circuit, Balaton Park, but Quartararo was cautious.
“It can’t really be worse than Austria,” he said with a hint of gallows humour. “I just want to enjoy riding, because Austria was the opposite of that.”
Whether the V4 arrives soon enough to make any impact in 2025 remains uncertain.
But for Quartararo, the Austrian disaster has made one thing clear: sticking with the current package is no longer an option.
