A disaster scenario.
While he could aim to regain a little margin in the World Championship on his main rival Francesco Bagnaia, Fabio Quartararo experienced a nightmarish Grand Prix of Thailand this Sunday.
In very difficult grip conditions reduced by the torrential rains that fell on the circuit in the hours preceding the race - even causing a delayed start of almost an hour - which he hardly liked, the champion of the world in French title did not see the light of day.
From the start, he took on water from all sides, falling back from 4th place on the grid well beyond the Top 10. Had he shown caution to avoid a damaging crash on the first lap?
Very quickly, this possibility flew away.
More pragmatically, the Yamaha of Nice was not in the rhythm.
So much so that he found himself at one point in a 19th place unworthy of his status.
But symptomatic of its enormous difficulties of the day.
Which earned him to finish outside the points (17th) for the first time – excluding retirement of course – since the Aragon Grand Prix two years ago.
The only small consolation for Quartararo, he retains the lead in the World Championship for two small units on Bagnaia who, after his mistake in Japan, did not want to take any ill-considered risks.
In the end, the Italian finished on the third step of the podium, taking advantage in particular of the Ducati team strategy since Johann Zarco, after coming back very strongly on him, could not, or had the right,
to overtake him in the final laps.
The Frenchman had to settle for 4th place.
For the victory, Miguel Oliveira confirmed that Asia was his kingdom, the Portuguese pocketing his second success in 2022 after that in Indonesia on March 20.
To achieve this, Oliveira had to overcome a Jack Miller who was also very comfortable as soon as the track got wet and who dominated the first half of the race, before gradually falling into line.