Updated Yamaha R1 homologated for remainder of 2024 WorldSBK season

The updated Yamaha R1 that was revealed earlier this week in production form will be used for the remainder of the 2024 WorldSBK season.

The bike, which differs from the R1 used so far in 2024 by Yamaha’s WorldSBK riders most obviously by its front wings, was unveiled for the first time in race form at an event held ahead of this weekend’s WorldSBK Italian Round at Cremona.

“I'm really glad that from tomorrow, our riders will be able to fully exploit the potential of this new package,” said Andrea Dosoli on Thursday, when the bike was unveiled in the colours of the factory Pata Prometeon Yamaha team, which will be without Jonathan Rea this weekend as the six-times champion continues to recover from the thumb injuries he picked up at Magny-Cours.

“The production bike is an important step which generates a bit of downforce and stabilises the bike, better front-end feeling entering the corner and braking, and less wheelie out of the corner,” Dosoli continued.

“This will make a bit easier the life of our customers, and they can exploit better the power of the crossplane engine.

“We improved the front end quite a lot, a big step with the front fork and also an improved braking system. We are sure that this new model will help our riders at a national level, where we cannot modify the bike so much. So, we'd be a step ahead, but of course, also the world stage.”

Dosoli also said that there is an additional development step anticipated in time for 2025.

“Our engineers from Germany, Italy and in Japan are working day and night.

“There is a gap to close with our competitors. We believe that this could be already the first step and it’s important that we succeed, to implement this bike in racing with four races to go, because then we can collect data that will be closer for 2025 where we expect another step in terms of development in the performance of the bike.”