French MotoGP star Fabio Quartararo has shouldered the blame for the two crashes which saw him surrender the championship lead to Andrea Dovizoso at Misano.
The Petronas Yamaha rider went down while sitting in fourth place as he tried to chase down Australian Jack Miller and after a trip to the pits, he crashed again on cold tyres.
But Quartararo’s race was done after the first incident which he said was caused by trying to catch Miller with tyres that had suffered because he had spent too long in Vinales draft.
“In the moment I overtook Maverick, I say ‘OK, I need to push to catch Jack’, but unfortunately, I pushed like it was the last lap, and there were 19 laps remaining,” said Quartararo, speaking at the track.
“So, it’s a mistake that I did by myself. Of course, behind Maverick the tyre overheated and the pressure went up a little bit.
“Many mistakes from my side. First I made not a great start. I had a touch with Jack in the beginning. Then when I was behind Maverick, I said, ‘I can ride half a second faster’.
“These tough moments are frustrating because you can’t overtake him, and you are like blocked.”
Vinales believes there was a little too much aggression between the 2021 Yamaha team-mates but also said he is fighting for the title, so will do what is necessary.
“At the end looks like we need to race like this. Even on the warm-up lap was a little bit aggressive. A bit strange because we were not first and second. We are not the only two racing. There are more riders.
Of course, there’s competition between two Yamaha riders, but I think it’s not the correct thing. Maybe it’s his riding style, because I didn’t really ride with him. At the end, it’s important for me to fight for what I want, which is the victory.”
“It’s a shame because I said that we had the pace to fight for the victory. We will see. It’s quite frustrating, but at least we learned something.
“At the end, you can be fast. You can have everything. But you can’t buy experience. You need to live it, to do the mistakes, and I think everybody learns. I’m sure even Marc or Valentino are still learning, so imagine when you are only in your second year.
“There’s so many things that I haven’t experience yet, so today I have experienced something where I was behind. I was faster. I wanted to catch-up too fast and didn’t take my time. I was scared that Franco would go away, or Valentino, and I was too excited.
“That’s why I crashed. I know my mistake. I will try to not make it again, but this is a good lesson for me. Unfortunately, it’s tough, but I’m happy for Franco that he won his first race and I want to congratulate him.”
