Fabio Quartararo hasn’t “bet everything” on Yamaha V4 MotoGP engine

Yamaha’s announcement, made during the summer of 2024, that it is developing a V4 engine for its MotoGP bike was an indication of the lengths to which it is going in order to try to recover performance in the championship.

Although Yamaha won the title only three years ago with Fabio Quartararo, the Japanese brand is without a win since the 2022 German Grand Prix, and went through the whole of 2024 without scoring a podium finish.

Since the beginning of the four-stroke era, Yamaha has run inline-four-cylinder engines, largely — and increasingly so — against the V4 grain.

With it being the clear thing which divides Yamaha from the rest of the MotoGP grid, it makes sense that swapping out its I4 for a new V4 would put Yamaha on more of an equal footing with its rivals.

However, with the engine still in the relatively early stages of development — early enough, at least, that the race riders haven’t yet tried it — Quartararo isn’t certain that it will be the ultimate cure for the Iwata marque’s recent performance struggles.

"I think it's a phase, especially that we have to do because we really know that the potential is where the V4 is,” Quartararo said in an interview published on the Spanish website Motosan.

“We see Ducati, Aprilia, KTM, also Honda, because there are really things that are worse than us but other things that are much better.

“We'll have to see a lot of things but I haven't really bet everything on a new engine.”

The V4 engine Yamaha is developing will move it in conformity with the rest of the grid, as Quartararo mentioned, but to catch up with the European brands there is more to be done than simply following their lead on engine configuration.

It will also require improvements in other areas, and to do that Quartararo has been certain since 2023 that Yamaha had to revolutionise its working methods. His re-signing for 2025 and 2026 was achieved by Yamaha due to its ability to give evidence to the Frenchman that the company is trying to make those changes, a major part of which was bringing in the engineer Max Bartolini from Ducati.

“In September 2023 I was really considering changing brands,” Quartararo admitted.

“I asked many things: I need this, I need engineers of this quality, I need [...] to really believe in the project and since the end of November 2023 they have brought people, they have brought a very large budget for aerodynamics, engine, new people.

“I was able to have a fairly long meeting with Max Bartolini.

“Really in the team and in Yamaha there is a lack of personnel like Max, but I stayed above all because the project was big, they have invested a lot, and also the loyalty that Yamaha has made me move up to MotoGP at the time when I was nobody.

“With everything I have asked and everything they have done, it has also weighed on the