Petronas SRT Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo was happy to prove his doubters and naysayers wrong after securing his seventh podium of a stunning rookie campaign that also saw him claim top independent team honours at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia.

The Frenchman started from pole position and after enjoying an early lead soon found himself being caught and passed by eventual race winner Marc Marquez. Quartararo held onto second place for his seventh podium of the season, backing up his six pole positions capping a sensational rookie campaign.

Quartararo said that the doubters and naysayers before the season helped motivate him for the season and that he is happy to prove them wrong.

“If I had a win this year would have been even better, but last year I got a lot of bad comments that I was not ready or not the experience to be in MotoGP,” said the 20-year-old.

“But I work a lot during the winter and during the test and we manage to get seven podiums, poles and I think we deserve the place that we have today.

“I want to thank all of them [team], because they believe in me and we make an amazing job during the season and I can’t wait for next year.”

Quartararo said that a win was the only thing missing from his rookie season, but when asked if there was an element of frustration about seeing Marquez pass him and edge away, Quartararo said: “No, no, no, no, like I said yesterday, we are really good in qualifying, but we knew that Marc’s pace was much better than ours and in my mind was the podium. I was not thinking about the victory.

“We make the perfect start, I had a small touch with Jack in turn two, but I was enjoying a lot. The last ten laps I was pushing a lot because he was coming and was not easy to keep focus. But we finish the season in the best way possible.”