Reigning MotoGP World Champion and 2019 points leader Marc Marquez believes Fabio Quartararo will be a strong title challenger next season in what will be only his second season in the blue riband class.

Quartararo lead all but three lap of yesterday’s race in Italy and was narrowly beaten to his maiden win by the Resol Honda man - but the Frenchman still said it was the best day of his life.

“Fabio showed to all of us, I already knew it, but he showed that he has the potential, the talent, the bike and the team to fight for a championship next year,” said Marquez.

“I believe from now until the end of the season he will be a tough contender and he will win some races. We will try to avoid it but I predict next year he will be a tough contender for the championship.”

Marquez was full of praise for Quartararo’s ability to make the Petronas M1 work in a way the factory boys can’t.

He is riding the Yamaha in a very good way. You can follow the other Yamahas but he is riding in a very good way, very precise, but especially at the fast corners he is very fast.

“In turn 11, for that reason, I tried to overtake him before sector three because I checked that if I arrived behind him before Turn 11 I would lose the race so he was very fast in the fast corners and even with a slipstream I was not able to follow him.”

Petronas will stump up the cash for Quartararo to have a full factory bike next season but you'd question if he wants one, given how much faster he is than Rossi and Vinales using a bike that has some  very old designs on it...