MotoGP rookie sensation Fabio Quartararo said that he is going into his first MotoGP race with an open mind and not putting too many expectations on himself.

The young Frenchman has impressive massively in the opening stages of his young career after strong displays in pre-season and free practice, however nobody could’ve for seen the satellite Yamaha man qualifying in fifth place on his MotoGP debut.

Despite the strong qualifying performance, the Frenchman remained level headed when discussing his expectations for tomorrow’s 22 lap race.

“I have pace and I checked that pace against the other riders, but I’m just thinking about trying to follow them,” said the 19-year-old.

“We can follow them, but we do not know about the final five laps, that’s where the question is. We also don’t know how to manage a MotoGP race. Sometimes when you make a race simulation you’re alone or sometimes you have six seconds in front. But in the race it’s twenty-two riders at the start. Let’s see what happens.”

The Frenchman said that he knew he had the potential to be competitive after his display in FP2 which saw him advance directly into Q2, in spite of that, his goal was still only a top ten start, not the second row.

“I’m really happy about the qualifying,” he said. “We knew we're fast, but the conditions yesterday were better.

“We saw in FP2 that we could go faster, but we were on the limit like everybody else at the second corner.

“My goal was to be in the top eight or nine, we knew that was difficult to be there because there are big riders in Q2.”