Yamaha or Honda: Who has made the most progress in MotoGP?

Ducati's rise to the top of the pecking order in MotoGP has coincided with the fall of Japanese giants Honda and Yamaha. Long the championship's dominant force and title favourites, both have gradually slipped down the order and are now battling to avoid finishing last in the standings.

Honda's dominance came to an abrupt end when Marc Marquez suffered career-altering injuries at the start of the 2020 season. Subsequently, victories and even podiums became rarer, and in 2024 its two teams failed to finish inside the top five in a single grand prix.

At Yamaha, Fabio Quartararo won the title in 2021 and remained in contention against Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia the following year, but the cracks were already starting to appear by then. Last year, even podiums were out of reach for the Frenchman.

The decline in Honda and Yamaha’s fortunes has been largely attributed to their approach towards MotoGP, as they have both been reluctant to make drastic changes to their programmes and adopt new methodologies. Over the last 12 months or so, the situation has begun to change: Yamaha's technical department is now being led by former Ducati man Max Bartolini, while Honda has similarly hired Romano Albesiano from Aprilia.

MotoGP has also responded to the widening performance gulf between European and Japanese brands by adjusting its concession system to offer significant freedom in development, albeit with limited results so far. Nevertheless, Yamaha and Honda have shown encouraging signs in the last part of the season, with both being able to fight inside the top 10 again.

Honda, having scored just 26 points in the opening 10 rounds of the year, added 49 to its tally in the second half. Yamaha’s results also improved but by a smaller margin, with the Iwata-based brand scoring 57 points in the first part of the year and 67 in the next. 

Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha MotoGP Team, Alex Rins, Yamaha MotoGP Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

By analysing the fastest time set by their leading riders in main practice, the only session that brings together the entire field with the objective of getting a direct slot into Q2, one can see a similar trend over the course of 2024. 

In the first half of the year, the best-placed Yamaha rider had an average deficit of 0.78% to the overall leader, which changed marginally to 0.79% from the Austrian GP in August. At Honda, this gap reduced from 1.17% to 0.86% after the midpoint of the year. It can therefore be concluded that Honda made the biggest progress in 2024 over a single lap, but while remaining behind Yamaha.

Of course, it is important to note that other factors were also in play last year and both Honda and Yamaha made big leaps from the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, which marked the 14th round of the season. It followed the in-season Misano test where all manufacturers were present. 

Yamaha was also able to count on its star rider Quartararo, who consistently got the best out of the M1 package while new team-mate Alex Rins got to grips with the bike. Over at Honda, the situation was the opposite, with both 2020 champion Joan Mir and newcomer Luca Marini struggling for performance. It meant that LCR’s Johann Zarco ended the best of the Hondas despite being new to the bike, and even Takaaki Nakagami was able to outscore the HRC duo in his final full season in MotoGP.

In the championship standings, Yamaha ended the year with 124 points compared to 75 for Honda. But according to Quartararo, Honda now has a technical advantage over Yamaha. Near the end of the season in Sepang, he found the differences particularly glaring.

"Actually, in terms of performance, the Honda is much faster than the Yamaha, especially on this track where there are no really fast corners," Quartararo said at that time. 

Joan Mir, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Honda

"But, for example, in the last corner where the bike really has to stop straight, turn and accelerate, I think the grip of the Honda is much better than ours and on a track like this, it's something more important."

Rins, who switched from Honda to Yamaha in 2024, also felt the Honda had "better cornering grip, better traction and more top speed", having also seen an evolution in favour of the RC213V towards the end of the season. 

"For a few races now I've already told the team that they have better mechanical grip than us, and on tracks like [Barcelona], where the grip is very low, they seem to have an advantage over us," the Spaniard said at the final round.

The observations made by Yamaha riders were echoed by those at Honda. Marini felt that Yamaha had an advantage at the start of the season and was able to benefit from Quartararo’s experience, but Honda made bigger progress without jumping ahead of its rival.

“We were always a step behind [Yamaha] because they started from a much higher point than us,” the Italian explained. “We gained a lot, we reduced the gap, but [we were] still not the same level of them. 

“Also they developed the bike during the season. They were not stuck and they kept working a lot during the season, their bike has improved like our bike. 

“I think we made more improvements than Yamaha, but they started from a better point than us, especially with Quartararo, who knows Yamaha very well and is able to bring the bike to the limit. 

“He is sweet-perfect in his riding style and he has much more knowledge of the bike and for this [reason] also his performance is better than us most of the time.”