CAN QUARTARARO HOLD OFF DUCATI POWER AND A REVIVED HONDA?
The sophomore slump is a phenomenon in music where an artist or band’s follow-up to their successful debut album fails to land the same impact.
More commonly, this is known as ‘the difficult second album’. It is something that can also be applied to a reigning MotoGP world champion. Winning one is hard enough, repeating that feat is an even more difficult proposition.
Fabio Quartararo’s historic 2021 title, when he became France’s first MotoGP world champion and ended drought for Yamaha dating back to Jorge Lorenzo’s 2015 success, fulfilled a prophecy. In his pre-grand prix days in the Junior World Championship, Quartararo was touted as the next Marc Marquez.
When he was signed in 2018 to join the fledgling Petronas Sepang Racing Team on a year-old Yamaha after failing – for many reasons – to live up to expectation in Moto3 and Moto2, his new team management was convinced that the talent that had earned him so much hype still existed within. And in a rookie 2019 season in which Quartararo scored
