Quartararo Yakin There Is Room For Improvement For Yamaha At The Australian Grand Prix
JAKARTA - World champion Fabio Quartararo said he still had room for improvement after finishing fourth when French compatriot Johann Zarco dominated two windy Australian Grand Prix training sessions on Friday.Following heavy rain, the Phillip Island Circuit track began to dry up and Zarco bulldozed the 4.4km track with the best lap of one minute 29.475 seconds.The Pramac Ducati, who is still eyeing his first win of his sixth season in the premier class, was also the fastest in his first training session on Friday morning.Meanwhile, Quartararo, who was hit by a number of bad results that left the world title fight still open, 0.139 seconds adrift of the leader of the training session that day.However, the Yamaha rider said his rides could go better in a number of remaining sessions before the race."Good enough, this morning was challenging. I was able to score a good pace seeing the condition of the track," said Quartararo, quoted by Antara, Saturday, October 15."At noon, his condition was better, but I made a mistake on my fastest lap, so I'm pretty happy to be in the top five."We'll try a few things tomorrow to improve feelings, and I think it's still a bit of a margin to increase our pace, especially in sector 1," Quartararo said.Quartararo really needs to gain as many points as possible this weekend after taking home just eight points from the previous three races.His crash made Francesco Bagnaia now cut the distance until both drivers were only two points adrift for the top race for the standings with three races remaining.In Australia, the race for the world title is also getting tighter when the top five riders are separated by only 40 points with three races remaining.Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) is in control of the standings with only two points from Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) while Aleix Espargaro is the focus of Aprilia with a distance of 20 points from the top, followed by Enea Bastianini (Gresini) with a distance of 39 points, and Jack Miller (Ducati) at fifth.Bagnaia finished P8 one position behind Espargaro during today's training session, while Bastianini was in P9.Miller, who recently married, became the rider who brought home the most points from anyone when completing three consecutive races from Aragon to Japan and Thailand. The hosts finished P13 today."Feeling good this morning, this bike is working pretty well, but this afternoon I had a bit of a problem with the rear tire and I couldn't appear to be able to press or lap well," Miller said."We have a number of inputs that need to be changed for tomorrow."Eight-time world champion Marc Marquez, who won three times on Phillip Island, finished P6 and headed for a number of Honda's new aero packages.