Fabio Quartararo - The Next Big Thing

Fabio Quartararo is being hyped as the next Valentino Rossi and the future face of MotoGP. Considering his phenomenal rookie MotoGP debut season of 2019, he very well may be.

- Eric Johnson

At the time, they called the then 15 year-old racer sitting before me El Diablo – The Devil. He didn’t really strike me or anyone else riding in the big white shuttle bus as any sort of hell raiser. It was Sunday morning, in early April 2015 and Fabio Quartararo was making his way into the paddock at the Circuit of Americas in Eloy, Texas for what would be only the second Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme Moto3 race of his professional racing career.

“No, I’m not really a rookie anymore,” said the astonishingly young racer straight out of Nice, France. “All the time all the people tell me, ‘You are really smooth.’ But when I get on the bike I don’t feel really smooth because I am on the limit on the entire track.”

Some five hours later that afternoon, Fabio Quartararo stood on the second step of the podium in Texas, his first accolade as a Grand Prix racer. Flash forward five years and the 21 year-old is, in the middle of the coronavirus clampdown, relaxing in an apartment in Andorra and impatiently waiting until word comes down that the coast is clear to go racing again.

Much has been made of Fabio Quartararo and the effect he will have on the sport of MotoGP. And understandably so. Seemingly a bolt of lightning in ’19, the Frenchman motored to seven GP podium placings and six pole position starts. All over the GP media throughout ’19 – and hyped to the hilt as perhaps the next Valentino Rossi - Yamaha made an eleventh hour decision to place Quartararo with the Petronas SRT outfit for 2020, albeit on A+-spec Yamaha race equipment.