Yamaha has “developments coming” to aid WorldSBK “acceleration and performance”

Following a miserable 2024 season, Yamaha is aiming to address some of its weak points in WorldSBK this winter.

Throughout last season, the R1’s straight line deficit was made especially obvious in bar-to-bar battles, but Pata Yamaha team principal Paul Denning has suggested that developments in that area could be coming before the start of the 2025 season.

“Electronics, we tested some stuff that was quite encouraging and had some good potential for the future,” Denning told WorldSBK.com at this week’s Jerez test.

“The engine was the 2024 motor at that point.

“Outright acceleration and performance is clearly an area, not so much for lap time but as a racing machine, that we need to improve on to make the riders’ life just a little bit easier.

“We’ve got some developments coming, hopefully in time for the Portimao test next week, at least as a shakedown.

“The work’s been fairly relentless and the investments in time, effort and, of course, money are significant to take a step forward and fingers crossed we’re going to be able to deliver that difference in performance very shortly.”

Yamaha entering 2025 “with a lot of enthusiasm”

With no victories in 2024 and only six podiums between Andrea Locatelli, Jonathan Rea, and Remy Gardner, last season was a clear disappointment for Yamaha, and a significant underachievement from the brand which finished second in the world in 2023 with Toprak Razgatlioglu.

However, Denning said that, rather than being unmotivated coming into 2025 with a package not exactly revolutionary relative to the 2024 bike, Yamaha is “coming into it [the 2025 season] with a lot of enthusiasm because we didn’t have a lot of success last year.

“We had some very competitive races and some podiums with Loka [Andrea Locatelli], but 2024 was a tough year compared to the high standards that Yamaha and the team and the riders set themselves.

“[There has been] a big reaction from everybody involved in the project – Yamaha in terms of technical development, the riders in terms of their own preparations and, as a team, we’ve changed a few things around internally to create a different working atmosphere and to improve the current situation.

“It’s been a good, very short, few weeks since the end of the Jerez race. We had a very positive November test here at Jerez and looking forward to the new season and to taking a massive step forward.”

One of the key personnel changes within the team that Denning alluded to has been the change in crew chief for Jonathan Rea, who has replaced Andrew Pitt with Oriol Pallares, who was formerly his chief mechanic.

“The first thing on Jonathan’s [Rea] side is we changed the team around, with the new crew chief, which is always a risk because we had an extremely experienced and very capable guy in that position,” Denning said.

“But changing the dynamic is sometimes something that an athlete needs, and Jonathan felt he needed that.

“I have to say that it worked, from the evidence of those two days, really well. That was a big positive that we’ll obviously keep expanding forwards on.”

Denning also detailed some of the technical developments that Yamaha had been able to make at last November’s test.

“Technically, there was some stuff that [Rea] actually felt made a positive difference to performance,” he said.

“Maybe during the year we introduced a lot of stuff and it felt different but not necessarily better.

“We’re able to take some steps forward which gave him confidence and he rode really well. There was some great stuff on [Rea’s] side.

“On Locatelli’s side, he tested a new development swingarm that, again, was fortunate in that it gave a proper step forward in grip and performance. That’s been introduced for the new season.

“It was just a good basis on which to start the development path for the 2025 season.”