Fabio Quartararo's Catalan MotoGP weekend didn't seem to be going in a positive direction on Saturday morning, the Frenchman missing Q2, whereas factory Yamaha teammate Alex Rins made Q2 directly from practice.

However, in the races Quartararo was competitive, especially in Sunday's Grand Prix. In the closing stages, Quartararo passed both Miguel Oliveira and Marco Bezzecchi, and crossed the line 10th. A penalty for Enea Bastianini then promoted him to ninth, with Quartararo declaring his race "really positive".

"This was a pretty good result," Quartararo said. "There were also not that many crashers in front of me, so, for me, it was a really good race, considering how we're going. We are less than 5s from fifth place, so this is really positive.

"The feeling was better than I expected, to be honest. We know what we're missing, but we're working on it, and I think that today it was quite a great race."

Quartararo continued, discussing his late fight with Bezzecchi and Oliveira. "It was nice: I saw Bezzecchi and Oliveira fighting in front of me on the last laps. I knew how difficult it is to stop the bike in Turn 1 and, considering how close they were fighting, I said 'Okay, they are going to go wide'. I decided to brake super early to carry speed and I overtook them.

"I could also keep the position until the end, so I think we were clever, and I think how I raced was nice. We are going step by step: in Le Mans the pace was good and here it was great."

Next up for MotoGP is the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello, where Yamaha tested before the Catalan race. There is a one-day official test at Mugello the day after the Grand Prix, and Quartararo revealed that Yamaha will also test at Valencia.

"Hopefully we can make more good steps in Mugello and at the private Valencia test afterwards. I feel like we're making progress, I feel like we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, which is great."

Alex Rins' Catalan GP was more complicated, going wide at turn one on the first lap after nearly hitting Jorge Martin, who eventually finished second.

"It was a really tough race," the Spaniard said. "It all began at the start. The launch from P8 was not bad, but I was so close to hitting Jorge Martin that I had to go into the long lap, and then I was in last place.

After the first turn incident, Rins struggled with grip.

"I tried to recover some positions," he said, "and I tried to ride as smooth as possible to manage the tyre, but it felt like everything was working in a bit of a strange way. The bike and the tyres, I was spinning a lot, like way too much – it never happened like that before. So, let's analyse and let's look forward to the next race weekend in Mugello."