Why it is time for Yamaha to unleash its MotoGP V4 early

“Balaton Park cannot get any worse than this.”

Whether or not you think Fabio Quartararo is occasionally prone to hyperbole, he certainly wasn’t overstating Yamaha’s situation after the Austrian Grand Prix. It’s a hard fact that the Iwata-based manufacturer’s four representatives at Spielberg brought up the rear of the field last Sunday. In Hungary next weekend, the only way is up.

There is no way to sugarcoat this one. Quartararo, the best of the quartet in 15th, crossed the line 25 seconds after winner Marc Marquez. Perhaps even more worryingly, he was fully seven seconds behind the man in 14th, Ai Ogura.

Even that modest result was Fabio outperforming that bike, believe it or not. The French rider was five seconds clear of the next Yamaha rider, team-mate Alex Rins. Miguel Oliveira and Jack Miller on the independent Pramac bikes? Don’t even ask.

It wasn’t just a bad race. Practice was a failure. Qualifying was rough, with only Ogura sparing the Yamahas forming up line astern at the back of the grid. Yamahas nailed down the last three spots in the sprint, with only Quartararo’s 11th place sparing the marque blushes of Sunday’s magnitude.

As if the outright tardiness of the M1 wasn’t enough of a PR disaster, consider Yamaha’s Friday afternoon. Miller’s bike had a technical problem and cruised back to the pits in a sorry state of repair. Did it drop oil on the track? No admission has been forthcoming, but Quartararo and Oliveira were caught out by the same patch of Turn 6 asphalt moments after Miller had puttered through the area.

A little perspective is only fair at this point, however. Yamaha and Austria haven’t been best of friends since the track returned to the calendar in 2016. The hillside venue was the scene of Maverick Vinales’s scary brake failure in 2020; that year’s Styrian GP was its worst result since 2007. Last year Yamaha also failed to score points, albeit with only the two factory representatives on the grid, in what Quartararo labelled a “disaster”.

Quartararo has long voiced his frustration at Yamaha's lack of progress in MotoGP

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Yamaha bounced back from that experience well enough for Quartararo to take four pole positions in 2025, as well as a podium in the Spanish Grand Prix. There are reasons to believe things won’t remain this bad, although a string of likely warm races coming up doesn’t bode particularly well for a bike that has done its best work on chillier days.

But the lay of the land is very different one year on from Spielberg 2024. Firstly, we’re one year closer to the new regulations kicking in for 2027. Secondly, Yamaha has an alternative bike in development. Thirdly, Quartararo could walk into any other team on the grid – and his patience is a year thinner than it was at last season's Austrian GP.

The rewards for trying to climb the mountain with the in-line four once again are less than they were a year ago. Even if it can return the bike to polesitting form, Yamaha would still need to figure out how to make it one Quartararo can actually compete with in a racing situation. And even if it does that, the machine will be obsolete 15 months from now.

The new regulations, a realistic alternative and an unhappy rider: there’s your case for Yamaha to push the boat out with its V4

Then there’s the V4 Yamaha has been working on for several months already. Flogging a dead horse when you have no other is one thing. But when there’s another beast hovering in the paddock? There’s not a lot to lose by letting it loose – even if it proves to be a donkey.

The 1000cc V4 cannot be the same as the 850cc V4 Yamaha has to build for 2027. But at least it’s the same layout. At least the lessons learned from it would be more relevant ones for 2027. And though Yamaha’s resources may be deep, binning one of its three current projects can only be of benefit to the other two. And there is only one that makes sense to bin at this point.

As for Quartararo, the Frenchman is a key asset for Yamaha. Those pole positions kept him interested earlier in the year by giving him a sniff of victory, even though that ultimately turned out to be a tease. Now Yamaha needs to bring something else to keep him motivated. He may even cut the factory some slack in the media if he’s on an all-new bike with development potential.

With all the Yamaha riders marooned at the back of the pack in Austria, what does it have to lose with trying the V4?

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The new regulations, a realistic alternative and an unhappy rider: there’s your case for Yamaha to push the boat out with its V4. Not with an as-yet-unconfirmed first public appearance at the Misano test next month. Not with a toe in the water. But rather an aggressive throw of the dice: send it to the circuits and let it race in 2025.

Is there a risk of failure and embarrassment? Of course. But what was the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix if not failure and embarrassment? If the V4 is off the pace, at least Yamaha can point to its novelty and the early stage of its development. Far better, surely, than Quartararo pointing to the current project going backwards.

Remember that Yamaha has testing concessions. It also has an extra two bikes out there thanks to its new satellite Pramac. If it wants to, it can develop this thing as fast as any team on the grid, bar perhaps Honda. More so if sorting the current bike is no longer on the to-do list. And the insights gained from racing it early will only help it focus that testing on the right areas.

Is the current machine going to win the title in 2026 as things stand? No. Could the only all-new bike on next year’s grid challenge Ducati’s hegemony? With other manufacturers, Ducati included, squeezing ever-diminishing gains out of the current rules set, something entirely fresh has the best chance of doing so. And getting a head start at the back end of 2025 cannot hurt in that regard.

In a world of corporate risk aversion, letting the V4 out to play at, say, Barcelona would win Yamaha a lot of friends. With Marquez bulldozing his way to an inevitable title and what feels like dozens of races still remaining, a hot storyline like that is exactly what MotoGP needs.

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