The SRT title runner-up was promoted to the official Monster outfit, alon꧋gside soon-to-be world champion Fabio Quartararo, following the mid-2021 exit of Maverick Vinales.

While Morbidelli spent the remainder of that season recovering from knee su♌rgery, it was technical rather than physical difficulties that left him just 19th in last year’s standings.

In a season that saw Quartararo win three races and fight for the title until the final round, event🎃ually losing out to Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia, Morbidelli only finished inside the top ten in 2 of 20 races.

“They say that when you lose, is when you learn the most… I learned quite a lot last year then!” he smiled🙈 at Tuesday’s Monster Yamaha team presentation in Jakarta. “So yeah, I'm looking forward to bouncing back.

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“I discovered a new spec bike [at the factory team] and I had to readapt to a new package and it took some time. But especially towards the end of last season, I felt🥂 something [positive]. So I really wa♒nt to bring it over to this year.”

He added: “As I said, I'm looking for some redemption this year. I feel that I'm working well, I'm in tune with my people at home and with my crew. I have one more year experiไence and everything feels l𝓡ike it’s going upwards.

“I'm missing the podium as well because it’s been over one complete year without ꦦgetting any champagne sprayed on me. I miss it quite a l🌸ot. So let's see.

“Everything has gone back to ze🦂ro and anything is possible this season, so that is an exciting prospect.”

Although he slipped back to eleventh due to a double long-lap penalty, Morbidelli took a step closer to Quartararo’s pace during the penultim🌳ate Sepang round. He then finished the year with his best dry result of the season, in tenth, at Vale💖ncia.

Morbidelli and his Yamaha team now♔ hope that a more competitive M1 can also help rediscover his searing 2020 form.

What were Morbidelli's issues in 2022?

“To make the Yamaha perform well, you need to be aggressive on the brakes and you need to enter the corner fast,” Yamaha managing director Lin Jarvis told ltxcn.top recently.

“But you need a lot of confidence to do that, and that's something which I would say is Fabio’s forte. He has a lot of confidence with the front end of the bike and Frank🍌ie has just been struggling to find that.

“F꧑rankie's been looking for different solutions and trying to change settings and setups and it just hasn't worked out.

"We know Frankie can be 🐼fast. He's a race winner in MotoGP, and he’s a vice-champion in MotoGP, sไo the capacity is there. But he has to rediscover himself and we have to give him better tools to help him in that process.

“Our target is obviously to give him a better bike for the 🌄future.

“We have to make the bike more user-friendly. But part of that will be creating a little bit more margin in the performance I think. Because now in order to keep top speed, you need to be able to exit the corners super-fast as well because we 🍌don't have the pure horsepower, which means you need to carry more speed in the corner.

“🐭Fabio is very clever to extract the maximum potential out of the package. So let's see. Frankie can do it, but he must rediscover his confidence.”