Fabio Quartararo – the unsurprising surprise package

Fabio Quartararo won everyone over in 2019 after there were major doubts from a large amount of people about whether he had the level required to be a MotoGP rider.

This is a rider who was a double Junior Moto3 World Champion including winning the 2013 title as a rookie. In 2014 Fabio Quartararo won every race bar two where he finished in P2, for 2015 he arrived into the Moto3 world championship with the Estrella Galicia team in a whirlwind of hype at 15 years old, tipped as the next big thing to come from the lower classes and potentially dominate the paddock. It didn’t turn out that way. Taking exactly zero wins in the Moto3 class having ridden for both the Estrella Galicia and Leopard squads, he flattered to deceive and made a move to Moto2 completely under the radar. He was still in a top team, the Pons squad, but struggled massively and it looked like his career was over.

Then along came the Speed Up move. The move seemed to give Fabio a new lease of life, and he proceeded to take the chassis to the very top, winning in Barcelona in 2018 and finally fulfilling what had been promised on those Moto3 machines. He took a second win on track too, but that was then taken away at Motegi due to having irregularities in his tyre pressures.

Petronas then came calling for 2019 to move to MotoGP, he was the least heralded of all the rookies. He showed promise in his first race, qualifying in fifth but proceeded to stall on the grid at the opening race in Qatar, before then recovering his reputation tenfold by setting scorchingly fast laps to almost get himself into the points, an amazing feat for a rookie from the pit lane. Jerez arrived 3 races later, the star was offically burning, he took pole position and was in a great position for the win before the gear selector broke. He would add 5 more pole positions to his tally during the season and stunned everyone with seven podiums but would not get that elusive race win, though he would take home top rookie honours, something that was seemingly unthinkable before Qatar.

So far in 2020 he has already bagged a move to the Factory Yamaha setup, replacing Valentino Rossi who is all but confirmed to go the other direction to Petronas, and after 2 races, he sits untouched at the top of the standings with 2 wins from 2, dominating both Jerez races and confirming himself to be the new title favourite after Marc Marquez took himself out of contention.

Featured image- www.motogp.com