Yamaha ‘has no idea’ how to fix its MotoGP bike

Fabio Quartararo believes Yamaha doesn’t really know how to fix the problems with its troubled V4-powered M1 and become competitive in MotoGP again.

Quartararo made that assessment after the Iwata-based brand struggled for performance at the US Grand Prix, where its quartet of riders occupied the last four spots on the timesheets.

Pramac rookie Toprak Razgatlioglu was the only Yamaha rider to break inside the points in 15th place, but finished more than 25s off race winner Marco Bezzecchi in the 20-lap contest. 

Jack Miller wound up in 16th place, while Quartararo finished just ahead of factory team-mate Alex Rins, a two-time MotoGP winner at Austin.

After the opening three flyaway races, MotoGP now heads into an unexpected break in the calendar due to the postponement of the Qatar Grand Prix. When the season resumes with the Spanish Grand Prix on 25-26 April, teams and manufacturers will also be able to take advantage of a one-day test at Jerez.

However, Quartararo is not expecting an immediate breakthrough at the Spanish venue, with Yamaha still struggling to make tangible progress with a bike it radically overhauled over the winter.

«I’m already expecting it to be a very long season,” he told French broadcaster Canal+. “The team doesn’t really have any idea how to improve all the issues we’re having with the bike. 

“But I think mentally, we need to stay pretty calm. We have a little over a month off, so that’ll be good for completely disconnecting.”

In 2025, Miller was the top non-Ducati rider at the Americas GP, finishing an impressive fifth on the previous-generation Yamaha. 

This year, however, Yamaha was nowhere near that level. The deficit to the front has grown from around 12 seconds in 2025 to more than 25 seconds this year, despite the marque finding roughly half a second in qualifying.

Quartararo expects the next two rounds in Spain and France to offer a clearer indication of the challenge Yamaha faces to close the gap to the front.

“[We need to] stop comparing lap times a little bit, because with the team, we compare… Yes, we were half a second faster in qualifying than last year, [but] the others [gained]  a second,” he said.

“So it’ll be good too, even for the team, to see that the lap times are much slower than last year on tracks like Jerez and Le Mans. I think the engineers will be glad to see that.”

No positives from Austin

Quartararo qualified as the top Yamaha in 16th and held the final points-scoring position for much of the race, losing a spot to Razgatlioglu with only three laps remaining after suffering from a sudden tyre drop-off.

While his performance just a week earlier in Brazil had given a ray of hope, the Frenchman said there were no positives to take from the Austin round.

“I don’t think there’s really anything to take away from a race like this,” he lamented. “We really struggled on Sunday and the bike changed a lot.

“I try to do things a little differently, to experiment during the race, because in the end, we were so far off that I could try out a few small details, but it’s clear that it’s not working.”

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— The Motorsport.com Team