Fabio Quartararo was involved in a first-lap crash in the Malaysian Grand Prix but finished in sixth place.
After a lap one crash with Jack Miller, which resulted in the Malaysian Grand Prix being red-flagged, Fabio Quartararo finished the restarted race in sixth place.
During the crash, the rear of Quartararo's Yamaha M1 was hit by Miller's head. The Australian fell from his KTM RC16 after contact with Brad Binder causing him to fall into the path of the Frenchman.
“I didn’t even see what happened,” Quartararo explained after the Malaysian Grand Prix. “I just feel like someone hit me on the inside, and then felt like a lock, was the head of Jack (Miller), so I didn’t know how he was.
“I saw him just before in the paddock so I’m really happy for him to be fine because it was a really scary one.”
'We can be happy with the result we managed to get.'
Despite the crash, Quartararo was happy with his pace in the restarted race. The #20 finished in sixth place in the Malaysian Grand Prix, continuing the upward trajectory that Yamaha has shown in recent weeks.
“I think we can be happy with the movement we had during all the race, with a front tyre that was not really the one that we liked,” Quartararo said, having had to switch front and rear tyres after the start.
“Then, we started with a rear tyre that was quite used unfortunately. I think the result was quite okay and we can be happy with the result we managed to get.”
The Malaysian Grand Prix marks the end of the 2024 MotoGP flyaways. The Frenchman may not have cracked the top five in a Grand Prix during the flyaways but he did finish inside the top ten on multiple occasions.
“I think we can take positives from all the circuits,” Quartararo stated. “Japan was one of the weakest ones, but we go from Q1 to Q2, and then in Australia the pace was great. In Mandalika, and in Thailand, we were fast in the wet and dry, here also. We qualified P6 in Thailand, P8 here.
“We can be happy about this end of the season, and hopefully we can see the difference from where we have been in Barcelona in the summer, and now in the last races we made a step.”
