Fabio Quartararo

Of Italian origin, as he was born into a Sicilian family moved to France, he can be considered a son of art: his father, Étienne, competed in the 1986 French motorcycle Grand Prix in the 250 class.

On 14 July 2022 he was awarded a knight of the Legion of Honour.

Born in Nice, Quartararo started his career in his native France at the age of 4.

He later moved to Spain to compete in the Promovelocidad Cup, a series for young riders organised by the Real Automóvil Club de Cataluña (RACC).

Fabio Alain Quartararo (born 20 April 1999), nicknamed El Diablo, is a French Grand Prix motorcycle rider racing in MotoGP for Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP.

Having won the 2021 MotoGP World Championship, he is the first French World Champion in the premier class' history.

As a result, Quartararo became the first non-Spanish rider since Stefan Bradl in 2007 to take the title, and at the age of 14 years, 222 days, its youngest series champion, surpassing the previous record held by Aleix Espargaró.

He won championship titles in the series' 50cc class in 2008, the 70cc class in 2009, and the 80cc class in 2011.

Prior to moving into the senior Moto3 series in Spain, Quartararo won the Mediterranean pre-Moto3 class in 2012, which was also denoted as the Spanish domestic championship.

Prior to his Grand Prix career, Quartararo won six Spanish junior championship titles, including successive CEV Moto3 titles in 2013 and 2014.

Due to his successes at a young age, he has been tipped for "big things", even being compared to multiple time world champion Marc Márquez, and set various age records during his progress up to World Championship level.

Moving into the Moto3 class of the CEV Repsol series in 2013, Quartararo joined Wild Wolf Racing – run by former Grand Prix racer Juan Borja – riding a Honda.

Quartararo finished on the podium in his maiden race in the series, run in wet conditions, finishing second to Great Britain's Wayne Ryan at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Quartararo finished sixth in the second race at the circuit, and left tied for the championship lead with Dutch rider Bryan Schouten.

Over the next four races, Quartararo recorded only one top-ten finish – from pole position at Navarra – and had dropped to eighth in the riders' championship standings, 37 points behind Spain's Marcos Ramírez.

Quartararo finished the season strongly however, winning each of the final three races from pole position – his first series wins – defeating Ramírez by almost ten seconds in the final race at Jerez.

Quartararo remained in the CEV Repsol championship for the 2014 season, as he was not old enough to graduate to the World Championship level.

The rule, announced in and introduced in, stated that a rider must be 16 years of age to compete in a Grand Prix.

Quartararo continued riding a Honda in the series, but moved to the Estrella Galicia 0,0 junior team run by Emilio Alzamora, the 125cc world champion.

Quartararo finished the season as a clear champion, winning nine of the season's eleven races, and finishing second – to María Herrera at Jerez and Jorge Navarro at Albacete – in the other two.

His eventual championship-winning margin was 127 points over Navarro, who joined him as his team-mate at the final round of the season in Valencia.

At that final round, Quartararo also beat World Championship competitors Alexis Masbou and John McPhee, with their SaxoPrint-RTG team making a one-off appearance in the championship.

Quartararo's performances in the Spanish series were noted at World Championship level.

In the race which supported the 2014 French Grand Prix at Le Mans, Quartararo won by almost four seconds over nine laps, leading almost the entire race having started from second on the grid.

In August 2014, the Grand Prix Commission – consisting of representatives from Dorna Sports, the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM), the International Road-Racing Teams Association (IRTA) and the Motorcycle Sports Manufacturers' Association (MSMA) – announced a change to the previously introduced age eligibility rules, allowing for the champion of the FIM CEV Moto3 championship (regardless of age) to compete in the succeeding season of the Moto3 World Championship.

Quartararo was announced to be joining the Moto3 World Championship in October 2014, with the publication of the championship's initial entry list.

He remained with the Estrella Galicia 0,0 outfit, again riding a Honda, that he won that season's Spanish title with, and he was joined by Jorge Navarro, his closest rival in those championship standings.

He tested the team's Moto3 motorcycle for the first time in post-season testing in Valencia, but his first lap times were not provided due to the fact that he tested without a transponder.

During the first day of official pre-season tests at Valencia in 2015, Quartararo set the fastest time in the third session.

At the following three-day test at Jerez, Quartararo was fastest in five of nine sessions, including a clean sweep on the final day.

At his opening race weekend in Qatar, Quartararo qualified on the second row of the grid in sixth position, just 0.123 seconds away from the pole-setting time recorded by countryman Alexis Masbou.

In the race, Quartararo was ever-present in the lead group, and held the lead of the race with two laps to go, but contact with Francesco Bagnaia saw both riders slip down the running order, with Quartararo ultimately finishing the race in seventh position.

Such was the close nature of the racing that Quartararo was just 0.772 seconds behind the race winner, Masbou.

At the following event in Austin, Texas, Quartararo achieved his first podium finish, with a second-place finish behind Danny Kent.

He achieved his first pole position at the Spanish Grand Prix, a tenth of a second clear of Kent, but finished the race in fourth place.

On home soil at Le Mans, Quartararo again took pole position, by just over a tenth of a second from team-mate Navarro.

He led for a period during the race, but ultimately high-sided out of it from fourth position.

Quartararo returned to the podium with a second-place finish at Assen, having been part of the lead group for the entire race; he finished 0.066 seconds behind race winner Miguel Oliveira.

He failed to meet the high expectations in the Moto3 and Moto2 World Championships, but made the move up to MotoGP with Petronas Yamaha SRT, and finished as rookie of the year in 2019 with seven podiums and 5th place in the overall standings.

After collecting 3 victories in the compressed 2020 season, Quartararo moved up to the Yamaha Factory Racing Team for 2021 replacing Valentino Rossi, and managed to win the championship in his first season collecting 5 victories and 10 podiums.