MotoGP | Yamaha: V4 engine is already in an advanced stage!

The brand has not publicly admitted that it is working on a modification to the engine concept of its bike. The only references to this were the very vague answers given by the team’s riders, Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins, to journalists’ questions.

“Yamaha has to consider all engine concepts,” “El Diablo” recently responded, without providing further details on a topic that seems taboo among members of the Iwata manufacturer. However, a company source confirmed to Motorsport.com, last weekend at the Marco Simoncelli circuit, that the project has not only been started, but is proceeding at a fast pace.

Yamaha hired Luca Marmorini as an external consultant a couple of years ago, a highly experienced engineer who previously worked in Formula 1 with Ferrari and Toyota. After his time in single-seaters, the Italian has been instrumental in optimising the performance and increasing the reliability of the Aprilia power unit.

After signing with Yamaha (2022), Marmorini had already felt internally the need to consider the idea of ​​abandoning the inline-four nature of the engine in favor of a V-configuration, the majority option on the grid. The Japanese manufacturer, which had a V-variant in the 500cc era of the 1980s, is the only one to maintain the inline-four profile. According to Motorsport.com, Yamaha wants to bring a 1000cc V-engine to the track before the 850cc engines enter the scene in 2027.

Since the beginning of the year, thanks to the flexibility offered by the concession system, both Quartararo and Rins have tested different engine specifications, although none of them have produced the expected results. The last one, on Monday, on the test day after the San Marino Grand Prix.

With the arrival at the beginning of the year of Max Bartolini, former right-hand man of Gigi Dall’Igna at Ducati, as technical director, Yamaha is in the midst of a transformation phase that aims to restore competitiveness to a prototype that was champion in 2021, with Quartararo, and which then lost strength as the seasons went by.

In 2025, he will return to having a satellite team after the agreement signed with Pramac. He also hopes to secure the services of Augusto Fernandez as a test rider, given Cal Crutchlow’s physical problems. In addition to the Spaniard, Andrea Dovizioso, who recently replaced the Briton in a private test at Misano, could also join the project to recover the competitiveness of the M1.