Monster Energy Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo battled hard for 20 points on Sunday after fearing a race of no confidence in the Italian Grand Prix.

Launching from the second row, alongside title rival and home hero Pecco Bagnaia and with a raft of Ducati’s in front of him, the defending champion had a fight on his hands from the start of the Mugello race. But despite the odds, and his down on power YZR-M1, Quartararo enjoyed one of the best performances of his career, closing in on eventual winner Bagnaia in the latter stages to cross the line just half a second adrift after 23 challenging laps.

“To be honest, I think is the best race of my career,’ Quartararo admitted after the flag. “Of course I prefer to win but the way I fight during the race - and we arrive with no confidence to the race! Before the race, I say if I can be P6, P5 would be a really great result and we finished P2!

“Amazing race, finishing less than half second from Pecco. I feel I was faster but you know, is tough to overtake and we was missing a little bit of horsepower. But anyway, I feel happy and I feel that today we make a massive job because we finished on the podium and I didn't expect that!”

“Was strange, because of course arriving here the main problem was the top speed, before to arrive,” he continued on his Tuscan woes. “But Friday and Saturday basically I didn't complain many times about the top speed because I knew was much more bigger problems than the top speed.

“All the weekend I was not feeling good with the bike. We had a new fairing that basically disturb us all the weekend. I was not feeling good but we thought that such a small difference on a fairing was not the problem.

"We decide for the race to go back with our standard bike. We lost a little bit of top speed but you know when you have slipstream in front of you was not so bad. All the weekend I never complain about the speed just that last year basically was running super fast, our pace was good and this year not.

“Was also great to don't think about the top speed. I arrive into the race with no confidence but we just say 'Okay, we go back with the standard bike from all the beginning of the year, and we see how is going' and was going well straight away. I could really brake hard, feeling the front and if I'm feeling the front I know even if the bike is struggling a little bit I can be super fast and this is what happened.

“I was on the limit every lap, I feel the bike was on the limit,” he continued. “I could not put the bike more on the edge. I love riding my bike and I was having a lot of fun today. I didn't know where I was gonna end, in the position but I have a lot of fun when you try to be the fastest as possible.

“One time was with, I don't know if it was with Luca [Marini] or Marco [Bezzecchi]. On the straight he overtook me and then released the brake, release and he was turning and I didn't want to lose that place and I release the brake also, but I felt the front was just moving so much and was great to remain on the second position and have these precious 20 points.

“I had a group behind me at 0.8/0.7 and I was pushing like hell to catch Pecco. I was not even looking at my pitboard because I knew if I was going to catch Pecco, it was going to be the fastest I could go, so was really good.”

Quartararo has been expecting and waiting for upgrades since the championship returned to Europe, so it was difficult and frustrating to realise that the solution was not as they had intended.

“Of course when you have an update you expect to feel better,” he admitted. “But also is good that when you receive an update - I was expecting a fairing with more top speed since the beginning of the season - and actually it was a little bit more top speed but you need to realise the positive and the negative and the fairing had much more negative than positive. We were clever to say with the team that 'Okay, it's good that it goes one km faster but we need to go back to the other one because we lose in much more areas'. So I think was also a good decision to say 'Okay, we go back to something sure'.

“Of course it’s disappointing but we know that the old fairing was working really good also. We will try maybe in Barcelona - basically is a fairing for long straight because we have two wings less and maybe in Barcelona we will try it. But if it's not working and disturbing on my riding style, we will go back straight away.”

With the paddock packing up immediately for the Catalan capital, the Frenchman is hoping too ride the momentum into the second stage of the double header.

“Catalonia is a track that I really like,” Quartararo said. “Last year we were really fast there. I had my leathers open last year so we will make sure to keep it really closed this year and try to be as fast as last time, because the pace there was really strong and I feel like I arrive with a lot of confidence.”