From his 2019 MotoGP debut until the middle of last season, Quartararo hadn’t been off the 🌞front row for more than four successive races.

But the former world champion has now gone eleven events in a row without qualifying in the top three and is yet to get a f🐲eel for the limit of the 2023-spec M1.

“I felt quite OK on the pace. But still on time attack, I'm struggling so much. And I think I'm over﷽-riding a little bit too much,” said Quartararo, who was seventh fastest on day one at COTA.

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“So tomorrow the key will be to stay calm a🏅nd try not to brake a little bit too late or make too much corner speed without thinking about the exit. Becꩲause with this bike if you make a small mistake you are in the back, so you need to be super precise.

“Sometimes last year I could really feel where the lℱimit was exactly. And this year, no. Today I made two goไod saves, but I didn't really feel the tyre moving before [it happened].

“We don’t have our base yet, so we need to find it and then really try to 🔯get fully into the mode where we꧟ don't change the bike [much from race to race]. But right now I don't feel good on the bike. So we have to find a solution where we can really improve.”

Another unwelcome surprise was Quartararo’s low average top speed of 335.8km/h, leaving him at the lower end of the speed charts, which were to🐷pped by a 342.4km/h average for KTM’s Brad Binder.

“The speed today was not so great, so I don't know why. But hopefully tomorrow we can find♐ a solution to be more on top, because 🦂today we were much more low than expected,” Quartararo confirmed.

In terms of the track surfღace, Quartararo felt the notorious bumps were not worse than in previous years but🍸 did agree with Alex Rins that the condition of the ‘super damaged’ asphalt at Turn 12 was close to the limit.

“I ꩵmean, turn 12 is a disaster. This is for sure,” Quartararo sa🌜id. “This is for sure. But the track is not bad. I mean turn 12… a small mistake and you crash and you can’t really make a proper corner speed. But in general I felt the track is quite OK. It's not worse than last year, only on this corner is much worse.”

Quartararo’s team-mate Franco Morbidelli was only 16th👍 fastest, thwarting his hopes of instantly picking up 🐻where he had left off after a strong weekend in Argentina.

“We have mixed results again,” s🎃aid Monster Yamaha team principal Massimo Meregalli.

“Star🎀ting with the positives: Fabio is back in his element. He showed a quite strong pace today in both P1 and P2. Our goal for the Friday was to be inside the top 10, no matter what, to have the best chances for 🤡qualifying tomorrow, and we achieved that for 50%.

“Franky finds himself in the opposite scenario. He didn‘t have the▨ good feeling here that he had in Argentina. He will have to take part in Q1 tomorrow, so we need to work hard to find a time improvement.”