A 10th-place finish for Fabio Quartararo in ꦗthe Thai MotoGP Sprint came despite some tough battling at the beginni🅺ng of the race with KTM’s Brad Binder.

Quartararo dropped a number of positions on the first lap, when Binder passed him a turn nine and 🅷the Frenchman consequently spun up on the kerb on the e💜xit of the corner.

Although he recovered afterwards, there was regret from Quartararo about how his 🎶race started.

“The day was quite good, apart from lap one with Brad [Binderꦡ] who overtook us a bit too aggressive, then I lost a lot of positions,” Quartararo said.

“But then, Q1 was nice, Q2 was good; Sprint race, the pace was nice — just, like I ℱsaid, the first lap where we go two times wide, and lose 🐟five positions or even more.

“But, I think we can be happy with the pace we have made today, and j🐈ust this overtake destroyed a little bit our result in the race.”

Despite the frustrating start to his raceꦏ, Quartararo was able 🌊to come back to 10th place after dropping to 15th with those early exchanges.

“I think our pace was qꩲuite [a bit] faster than the guys I had in front, at this moment,” Quartararo said in explanation of his ability to make passes — not a usual characteristic of a Yamaha MotoGP rider’s race.

“But, of course, when I arrived behind [Marco] Bezzecchi or [Fabio Di Giannantonio] to overta💯ke ཧI think it will be a little bit more difficult. But at least I enjoyed [the race], pretty much.”

The 2021 World Champion explained that he was able to make the difference in brakinꦅg compared to his rivals.

“On the breaking,” Quartararo sa🌌id when asked where he was making up time.

“I mean🃏, I used the front tyre completely on th𝔉e limit, and I think this is the place that really I try to make the difference, but we really only brake by the front, and the rear has no grip.

“Luckily with o🍌ur bike we have this point where I can really feel the limit on the front.”

<H2>Season-best qualifying

Before his🧔 Sprint recover🔥y, Quartararo secured a season-best qualifying of sixth.

He achieved that after go🍬ing through Q1, and set an almo🎃st identical time to his Q1 effort to take that sixth place in Q2.

“I think that we pushed the bike completely to𒁃 the limit,” Quarta✅raro explained.

“The limit was there. We made 1:29.4 in Q1, and 1:29.4 in Q2 — to be honest I have nothing left on the bi🎉ke.

Quartararo’s qualifying also fea💜tured an eye-catching save, as he lost the front on the entry to turn five bef🎶ore his knee or elbow were on the floor but managed to pick the bike up.

He said it was down to the hard-🅘compound front tyreಌ, which doesn’t offer much feeling on the edge of the tyre.

“I think t﷽he hard front [tyre] is good, 🍸it’s giving us good confidence, but it doesn’t really tell you where you are on the edge [of the tyre],” he said.

“So I rea🎀lly lose the front, and could save it with the knee and the elbow. It’s not really usual to make it with the Yamaha because normally it’s [the front] really going quite fasﷺt, but I could save it on time.”