Yamaha V4 MotoGP bike is far from ready to race

Yamaha’s first public outing with its new V4 MotoGP bike offered a glimpse into what’s to come in the future, but the new prototype needs a lot of development, according to its riders.

MotoGP tests usually produce incredibly fast lap times, especially if they take place directly after a race weekend. We also tend to see manufacturers bring new parts to their bikes, both big and small, in the hope of finding more performance. 

But on Monday (15 September) at Misano, Yamaha gave its full-time MotoGP riders a proper taste of the completely new V4 power unit, which the Japanese company hopes will prove good enough to replace the inline four.

Radical changes such as a brand-new engine concept, and one that uses a completely different configuration than before is very rare, even for MotoGP which is the championship where we see the most technological and aerodynamic advancements. 

But, and it’s a pretty big but at this point; the Yamaha V4 is not ready to race in MotoGP. Of course, between now and the 2026 season Yamaha has time to develop the bike in the hope of getting it ready to replace the inline four, however, building a completely new engine is unlikely to yield race wins straight out of the gate. 

The good news for Yamaha is that all four of its full-time riders produced similar lap times in the one-day test. The bad news is that they were all a long way off the fastest times. 

That’s not necessarily a surprise, and we must remember that changing from an inline4 to a V4 is the biggest engine shift a manufacturer has made in a very long time. But for those of us that enjoy MotoGP tech trickling down to road bikes that we can enjoy ourselves, it’s worth keeping an eye on how the V4 performs.

Yamaha’s R1 family could one day incorporate the V4 engine, but for that to happen it will likely need to prove itself as a better engine than the inline4 in MotoGP.

2021 world champion Fabio Quartararo, who has been Yamaha’s best rider so far this season, offered up an honest assessment of the new V4 after the test, saying:  

"This was the first time people could see me ride the V4 publicly, so I think it's normal that there's a lot of attention when you return after your first run. Of course, this bike is still in an early stage, so there's still a lot of work to do. We didn't have the same feeling as we did in Barcelona, but there's a margin for improvement. I have zero problems adapting to the V4 engine. But I don't think we should expect the engine to solve all problems all at once. There are also other key areas like settings and electronics that need to be adjusted. We are exploring the potential right now." 

Time will be the biggest challenge for Yamaha in terms of getting the new engine ready for 2026, but to help with that, the new V4 will be entered as a wildcard at the Malaysian and Valencian Grand Prix’ later this year.

Yamaha purists will love that the brand uses an inline four engine as opposed to the V4 that every other manufacturer currently races with. However, the V4 has shown for many years now that it has more potential. That’s why Yamaha is making such a drastic change less than two years before engines drop from 1000cc to 850cc. 

Jack Miller also offered his view of the new bike, which was slightly more positive than Quartararo, adding:

“It has been very interesting for us to have the chance to do the shakedown of the new Yamaha V4 bike. It‘s been a good test to understand both the strong points of the machine and the weak ones, trying to maximize the strong areas and improve the weak ones. We are on the right path: the bike is working well, and in some areas we‘ve already made progress compared to this year's YZR-M1, so we are going in a good direction. Coming from the old M1, whose strongest point was corner speed, we are now trying to find a new balance in terms of geometry, weight distribution, and all those aspects. The bike is doing all the right things, now we just need time, as these are still the very early days of the project.”

The development of Yamaha’s V4 is likely to be the biggest storyline heading into the final few races, as the 2025 title fight is expected to be won by Marc Marquez at the Japanese Grand Prix later this month.

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