After finishing sixth in the Malaysian Grand Prix Practice on Friday, Fabio Quartararo admitted his new Yamaha engine 'had an issue'.

The Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP squad arrived in Malaysia with a new engine for their M1 machines. The engine was not the new V4 that the Japanese manufacturer had been working on, but a new trial engine which was tested in Misano.

Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins were both given the new engines for this weekend. From the outside, it looked like the new Yamaha engine had made a massive difference to the M1s at Sepang.

Quartararo ended Friday in sixth place with Rins in eighth. This meant both Yamaha riders had gained automatic access to the Qualifying Two session on Saturday morning.

However, after the Friday Practice session, it was quickly discovered that only Rins ended the day with the new engine. This was because Quartararo's engine 'had an issue' after one and a half laps.

“I could only make one and a half laps with the engine,” Quartararo said on Friday afternoon.

“We had an issue with the engine, so we will not use it anymore. We tried the new engine, as you saw with the long exhaust, and we had an issue; we broke the engine.

“I don’t know if it’s broken or not, but at least it stopped on the straight and we could not fix it for this weekend.”

On Saturday Quartararo went on to finish fifth in the Tissot Sprint Race, his best result of the 2024 season.