– With the new V4 engine concept, Yamaha is clearly at the bottom of MotoGP. In the first three MotoGP races of 2026, only nine World Championship points were collected for the manufacturers’ standings. Fabio Quartararo’s sixth place in the Brazil sprint was an outlier given the circumstances, as he was able to qualify for Q2 on a wet track on Friday.
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In the Grand Prix, the current reality returned with 16th place. The time gaps in the three full-distance Sunday races illustrate this. In Thailand, Quartararo was the best Yamaha rider, finishing 14th with a half-minute deficit.
In Brazil, teammate Alex Rins finished 14th. Over the race distance, shortened to two-thirds, he lost 23 seconds. Most recently in the USA, rookie Toprak Razgatlioglu was the best Yamaha rider, finishing 15th. His joy was not great, as he criticized a 25-second deficit.
With the concept change from an inline-four to a V4 engine, Yamaha has made a fundamental decision. It is clear that 2026 will be a test year for the future, when from 2027 the displacement will be reduced from 1,000 to 850 cubic centimeters.
Since the size and position of the winglets will also be slightly changed next year, the side fairing will become even more important than it already is. A narrower engine offers more space for the aerodynamics of the side fairing.
This was also a significant reason for Yamaha’s concept change. Ramon Forcada, who worked for Yamaha for 14 years and won three world championship titles as Jorge Lorenzo’s crew chief, views Yamaha’s situation skeptically, also with an eye on the future.
“On paper, the bikes won’t be that different next year,” says Forcada at Duralavita. “There won’t be a big difference, because since the bike won’t change much, everyone else has a basis on which they can build the 850cc.”
“Yamaha doesn’t even have a basis yet. They can’t just give up this year’s bike. They have to start with the 850cc for next year. And for that, if they find something that works this year, they also have to transfer it to next year’s bike.”
Forcada cites Aprilia as a counter-example. The current RS-GP is mature and capable of winning. This allows the engineers in Noale to focus on the new 850cc bike and incorporate the basis and experience from the current bike.
“Yamaha can’t do that,” says Forcada. “The problem is that the engine is young. In the end, it’s a dilemma. Either you make it run faster, but then it breaks. So you don’t find the combination of reliability and performance. All of this now takes time.”
As an example, the former crew chief mentions the winter test in Sepang, when Yamaha had to sit out a day to investigate the cause of damage. Forcada believes they would have continued if it had been a race weekend.
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“The problem is that despite the Europeans, the Japanese are still in charge, and the issue of safety is for them …”, Forcada names one aspect. “There was a batch with questionable parts. So they stopped before anything could happen. After that, they continued with the same engine.”
Checa: Razgatlioglu’s Result Shows Motivation of Other Riders
Carlos Checa, who rode for Yamaha from 1999 to 2004, also currently sees the new V4 engine as the weak point of the new M1. “From the beginning, the step forward they wanted to make has become a step backward,” he says at Duralavita.
The former racer, who became Superbike World Champion in 2011, also sees the frustration of the riders: “Fabio Quartararo, who wants to fight for the world championship, is at the back. The motivation is obviously not there. Or like Jack Miller, who has won Grands Prix. Rins, the case of Rins.”
“Toprak comes as a newcomer and wants to give everything. It’s obvious that there are emotional differences. That’s also very difficult. Especially considering that Fabio has already signed for another team next year.”
“In this regard, you can understand these results a bit, and also that Toprak is strangely the best Yamaha rider at the moment, right?”, Checa addresses the result of the US Grand Prix.
“Which shouldn’t actually be the case, neither by experience nor by quality, and especially given the time each of them has spent at Yamaha. That a rider comes and is ahead of you in the third race, honestly, I wouldn’t like that at all.”
“Toprak is a real racer and will ride whatever you give him. If you gave him a wooden motorcycle, he would ride it. Next year he has Pirelli tires, which he knows very well. And next year, I believe, everything will improve for him,” believes Checa.
“I believe he makes the most of every opportunity. I believe he is a very high-quality rider. He is a rider to keep an eye on, because if he has the technical support, I believe he will be very competitive and will be at the front.”
However, the move to the factory team is blocked for Razgatlioglu. Yamaha has reached an agreement with Ai Ogura. The Japanese rider will form the rider duo with Jorge Martin in 2027. Razgatlioglu will therefore continue to ride for Pramac. Whether Miller will receive a new contract is currently unknown.
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