The Frenchman won last year’s race by 6.4s (after a first-corner accident eliminated some key rivals) but now faces a battle just to reach Saturday's Qualifying 2 and being the fastest rider on 🧸a Japanese bike was of little consoꦜlation.

Visibly disappointed on the slow-down lap after the chequered flag, Quartararo admitted: “This is the idea I have [to change attitude] because we cle𝕴arlyඣ know that we are not there to fight for the podium.

“But𝔍 it’s difficult to accept that the last five or six years I've been here, I've always been fighting for victory. Last year I won with six seconds of advantage. And now we are 17th.

“So of course it's difficult, but we have to start to accept it🌺, try to find whatever is positive to prepare for next year and that's it.”

The 2021 world champion’s key problem was a laꦏck of traction on a circuit already noto🎃riously slippery in the afternoon heat.

“We tried a little bit of everything [with the tyres] but weও struggle so much with the rear grip, then I꧙'m over braking a little bit too much and I struggle with the front.

“We wanted to try the hard [tyre] but the problem is j🍸ust we have no traction, especially the Friday here is always difficult, but we see that for the others it's not d💯ifficult.

“That's why we want to understand why we struggle so much wh🍨en the conditions are m🤪ore difficult.

“This morning I made a more or less good pace in the 🎀first 5 laps [until] the front was destroyed. But as s🃏oon as the temperature is a little bit higher or the grip is a little bit less, we are struggling a lot.”

The revised M1 exhaust tried earlier this year at the Jerez test wa🤡s soon rejected once again.

“There was no positive, 🐽only negative. So we decided to take it off,” Quartararo confirmed.

Asked if the more powerful 2023 engine is creating a more aggressive power delive♓ry, contributing to the spin, Quartararo replied:

“No, not really, because even if the power delivery is more aggressive, when I go from 15% until 40%, I do it quite smooth and t🍰he bike is still spinning like hell. This is basically the problem, but the power delivery is not an issue.”

“At the end, the feeling [with the new engine], also the power delivery, you adapt to quite quick. Already from the first test in Misano I fe⛎lt it was a little bit different, but I adapted quite fast and it didn't really change my riding.

“But we make sometimes a small step in front, but another step back with another thing. So♋ at the end we stay more or less in the same places, just a little bit changing the area where we are better.

“So this is something that when we improve something we have to [📖not lose] in the others.”

Quartararo was ♋followed on the Practice timesheets ⛄by team-mate Franco Morbidelli then the Hondas of Marc Marquez, Takaaki Nakagami, Iker Lecuona and Joan Mir.

In other words, a clear split between the 16ꦡ European bikes in ꦇthe top 16, and then the six Japanese machines.

“The limit of this bike🍨 is really easy to find and in the past, you used to have the limit and [then] y൲ou could go a little bit over it,” Quartararo said.

“With Franco, I thi🅘nk we are basically almost the same lap time, but because we cannot make the difference, we cannot make anything better. But of course we are trying to work super hard, try to change a little bit the mentality of Japanese♉ engineers.

“But of course, I'm not fully confident [for next year]. I tr▨y to believe the maximum on next year's bike and it's going to be super important to be patient and work hard until the beginning of next season.”