The executive from Yamaha faced the press, cleared his throat, and swallowed hard. There was something that needed to be said, uncomfortable as uttering those words as a MotoGP giant like Yamaha was.
“We have to apologise to the riders because [we have] less performance … we know this track is difficult for us, because we couldn’t achieve the right power delivery for the riders [and] we are seriously investigating how we can solve this problem … but I just want to say sorry.”
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Thailand on Sunday, after Yamaha’s dreadful performance in the opening race of the 2026 MotoGP season? No, Austria 2018, when then-Yamaha project leader Kouji Tsuya publicly apologised to riders Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales after the pair – unusually at the time – qualified outside of the top 10 at the Red Bull Ring.
Fast-forward eight years, and it’s hard to imagine a Yamaha rider being able to see the top 10 with a telescope.
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Last weekend at Buriram, Yamaha’s four riders – 2021 MotoGP champion Fabio Quartararo, six-time Grand Prix winner Alex Rins, reigning three-time World Superbikes champion Toprak Razgatlioglu and Australia’s four-time Grand Prix winner Jack Miller – were nowhere.
Quartararo (16th of 22 riders) was the fastest Yamaha in qualifying, while Miller (15th) fared best in the sprint. Of the 19 riders who finished Sunday’s 26-lap race, Yamaha riders were 14th (Quartararo), 15th (Rins), 17th (Razgatlioglu) and second-last (Miller), the Australian in survival mode by the end, just trying to make the chequered flag.
Yamaha’s switch from its long-successful inline-four engine configuration to a V4 engine to bring it in line with rivals Ducati, Aprilia, KTM and Honda was always going to produce some growing pains, but not like this.
On Sunday night, lest their quartet of accomplished riders let rip in their post-race debriefs, Yamaha cancelled their media sessions and threw managing director Paolo Pavesio into the fire to provide answers.
For 10 straight minutes, Pavesio ducked and weaved.
“Now we see very clearly from the first racing weekend what is the gap, and we understand that we have quite a mountain to climb,” he said.
“Our riders gave 110 per cent, the company is giving 110 per cent … but there will be no magic. One step after the other, one second after the other, we are determined to grow the project up until the moment we will be competitive again.”
Pressed on how soon Miller and his stablemates can expect an improvement, Pavesio was blunt.
“It’s very difficult to give a number of months … it’s clear that every time we go on the track, we are discovering things which we have to improve,” he said.
“Sometimes emotionally it is not easy, but there is nothing that is granted from where we were in the past – this is something we are deeply understanding.”
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EXPECTATIONS LOW, RESULTS LOWER
Preventing its riders from venting into an open mic was close to unprecedented for Yamaha, but entirely understandable. Expectations were muted after pre-season testing at the same Thailand track one week prior to the first Grand Prix exposed the shortfalls of its nascent engine project, but this was a horror show.
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The Buriram track, where the first two sectors are ostensibly three long straights joined by one medium-speed corner and one hairpin, exposed the YZR-M1’s lack of straight-line grunt, the four Yamahas routinely 10km/h or more slower than the other four makes of machine.
A paucity of power saw its riders over-reach in the corners, trying to make marginal gains under braking which, for 12 corners per lap for 26 laps, is akin to tiptoeing a high-speed tightrope. Add a weather forecast that couldn’t have been more wrong – early-week predictions of rain on Sunday gave way to 35 degree air temperatures and a 55-degree track surface – and Sunday’s race was like slow torture in a sauna.
“We are still understanding the base setting with the machine,” Pavesio admitted.
“I would say yesterday [in the sprint] was not too bad, the gap from the first Yamaha to the winner was exactly the same gap as last year, but clearly in the long race we have suffered a bit more.”
Comparing Thailand in 2025 – again the first race of the season – to the past weekend is instructive. Over the longer distance, Yamaha’s deficiencies were brutally exposed.
Thailand 2025 vs 2026
Sprint race (13 laps):
2025 winner: M. Marquez (Ducati) 19mins 35.005secs
Best Yamaha: Quartararo (7th, +13.437secs)
2026 winner: Acosta (KTM) 19mins 39.155secs
Best Yamaha: Miller (15th, +13.467secs)
Grand Prix (26 laps):
2025 winner: M. Marquez (Ducati) 39mins 37.244secs
Best Yamaha: Miller (11th, +22.315secs)
2026 winner: Bezzecchi (Aprilia) 39mins 36.270secs
Best Yamaha: Quartararo (14th, +30.823secs)
Miller: 18th, +47.848secs
This year’s sprint was slightly slower, the Grand Prix a tick faster in comparable weather conditions on both days. But Yamaha’s freefall on Sunday was sobering.
By the end of the race, Miller – no mug around the Buriram track, as a second place in 2022 and a stunning fourth in qualifying on debut for Yamaha in 2025 shows – was wobbling around trying to stay on board.
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Via quotes issued by Pramac Racing, the 31-year-old detailed an afternoon that began with promise – he rose to the edge of the top 15 points-paying positions after two laps – but soon went from bad to worse.
“The bike itself didn‘t feel bad over the distance and physically I felt fine, but from the very beginning I understood we had an issue with the rear tyre,” he said.
“I tried to manage it as best as I could – short-shifting, being smooth, waiting to pick the bike up on the exits – but as the laps went on it became more and more difficult.
“In the end the tyre was completely worn in the centre, and on the straights I couldn’t use more than about one-quarter throttle. It was a tough situation to manage.”
The fastest Yamaha lap in the Grand Prix was Quartararo, 18th overall – Yamaha riders were four of the five slowest – and 1.118secs slower than race-winner Marco Bezzecchi’s best lap of 1:30.487 on lap five.
Miller’s best lap was a 1:31.689 on lap four; his performance drop-off was so stark that he was at least half a second slower from lap 11 of 26, and he was haemorrhaging two seconds per lap to the rest for the final five laps to finish only ahead of Ducati stand-in rider Michele Pirro, the Italian who was deputising for injured regular Fermin Aldeguer.
THE WAY FORWARD
Yamaha, of course, has been here before – and bounced back. After Tsuya’s very public apology to the brand’s riders in Austria in 2018, Yamaha began to steadily climb again until Quartararo secured the 2021 title.
Yamaha in MotoGP, 2018-21
2019
Riders: Vinales, Rossi, Quartararo, Morbidelli
2 wins, 9 poles, 16 podiums, Vinales best-placed Yamaha rider in championship (third)
2020
Riders: Vinales, Rossi, Quartararo, Morbidelli
7 wins, 9 poles, 12 podiums, Morbidelli (runner-up)
2021
Riders: Vinales, Rossi, Quartararo, Morbidelli
6 wins, 6 poles, 13 podiums, Quartararo (world champion)
But it’s the period from 2022 onwards – specifically the German Grand Prix of that season, Quartararo’s most recent victory – that shows how deep the hole has become.
In the 73 Grands Prix since, Yamaha hasn’t won once in a period where Ducati has taken 60 wins between 10 riders. Aprilia – Bezzecchi’s win in Thailand was the Italian brand’s third in a row after he won the final two races of 2025 in Portugal and Valencia – are clearly rising. Even Suzuki – which withdrew from MotoGP after the 2022 season – have two wins in the same timeframe that Yamaha has none.
Yamaha in MotoGP, 2022-25
2022
Riders: Quartararo, Morbidelli, Dovizioso, D. Binder, Crutchlow
3 wins, 1 pole, 8 podiums, Quartararo (runner-up)
2023
Riders: Quartararo, Morbidelli
0 wins, 0 poles, 3 podiums, Quartararo (10th)
2024
Riders: Quartararo, Rins
0 wins, 0 poles, 0 podiums, Quartararo (13th)
2025
Riders: Quartararo, Rins, Miller, Oliveira
0 wins, 5 poles, 1 podium, Quartararo (9th)
As Ducati has changed the game in recent years with its combination of engine prowess and class-leading aerodynamics, its rivals have followed suit.
Aprilia, led by former F1 executive Massimo Rivola, is an operation with far less resource, but has worked smarter and made key hires from other teams, even if its big-ticket item – 2024 world champion Jorge Martin – has been too injured too often to maximise his potential.
KTM, knocked off course early last year after its parent company was beset by financial woes, is back on track, has a young gun in Pedro Acosta, and is leading the world championship after Thailand.
Honda, cast adrift at the back after Marc Marquez left following the 2023 season in what was derisively called the ‘Japanese Cup’ with Yamaha, has made huge gains over the past year and is set to announce Quartararo as one of its riders for the 850cc regulation change that’s set to sweep into MotoGP for 2027.
It’s clear the only way is up for Yamaha. Thailand illustrated the gradient of that climb.
“It’s difficult to say it was better [than expected],” Pavesio said on Sunday, an attempt at dark humour in a grim time.
“It’s correct that we are judged by the timesheets and the results on the track, but the bike has changed a lot from last year’s first wildcard at Misano, we are on frame number three, swingarm number three … we are still finding the base package, and with the base package we can start working in a more consistent way.
“Engine is a different story … we know we have power to look for, but we have a plan and checking the top speed, I will hope you will see in the coming races that we will find the correct compromise between performance and reliability. What’s extra difficult for us is that this is a completely different engine configuration which we are learning.”
With the 1000cc engine formula a thing of the past after November this year, balancing the need for short-term gains to appease its riders and Yamaha management while making the most of the sport’s hard reset for 2027 is paramount.
“In reality, while we develop the ’26 bike, we are learning fundamental things that we will transfer into the ’27 bike,” Pavesio said.
“One of the core reasons for the decision we took this year was, when you change configuration from an inline-four to a V4, a lot of things in the bike’s balance and set-up, where you put the rider, are new. Those are the things we are learning now.
“There will be physical pieces, but most of all there are concepts which we are improving and discovering now that are fundamental for 2027.
“It’s emotionally difficult for everyone, because the riders are the ones who have to deliver in the weekend and are more exposed. But we just need to understand that this is the only possible journey that we have to go through to go back to where we want to be.”
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