Fabio Quartararo used telemetry from the Brazilian weekend to quantify the Yamaha V4 M1’s top-speed and horsepower shortfall versus rivals. Speed-trap readings showed Marc Márquez at 348.3 km/h and Quartararo at 336.4 km/h; Quartararo said “I was 12 km/h slower than Márquez” and estimated “roughly 80% of the problem is the engine’s lack of power.” Sprint telemetry indicated the top-speed gap narrowed in race trim to about 4.5 km/h, but Quartararo said that improvement was largely due to the track’s flowing layout rather than a wholesale Yamaha breakthrough. Sources refer to the Brazilian venue alternately as Goiânia and São Paulo; this summary uses Goiânia for the cited details.

Despite the straight-line deficit, Quartararo recovered to finish sixth in the Saturday Sprint, 7.7 seconds behind the winner. He had qualified fourth, executed an opening-lap pass on Márquez and said he pushed “to the absolute limit.” He attributed his strong middle-sector speed to a single-lap effort, admitted he benefited from other riders’ crashes to post a quick lap, and said he enjoyed the early laps despite tire wear and ongoing top-speed issues.

The weekend underlined inconsistency for Yamaha. Quartararo set the slowest lap in FP1 at Goiânia, other Yamaha riders were roughly 12–13 km/h slower than the Ducati leaders in speed-trap data, and reports differ on his prior Thailand result (sources list either 14th or 16th). Quartararo’s competitive pace on the prototype, together with his data-driven diagnosis, was offered as a rebuttal to speculation that he is merely waiting for a switch to Honda. He warned the V4 M1 is still in development and cautioned that the Sprint result should not be read as a general step forward for Yamaha, predicting tougher weekends ahead at circuits such as Austin and Jerez.

Sources