Summary: Yamaha's Motorsport Shift Marks New Era of Speed Success. Yamaha undertakes a strategic change in motorsports to achieve new heights in the world of speed.
The year 2025 marks a challenging season for Yamaha, the major Japanese motorcycle manufacturer, especially in global motorsport arenas. This year represents a critical turning point requiring bold decisions to achieve success in a new era.
In the fiercely competitive and rapidly evolving MotoGP series, Yamaha, long successful with its Inline-4 engines, has intensified development under the leadership of Paolo Pavesio, who succeeded Lin Jarvis as Motorsport Director.
The YZR-M1 race bike with the Inline-4 engine still demonstrates excellent speed and agile handling, securing pole position five times thanks to Fabio Quartararo, the French former world champion, who averaged third place in qualifying during the 2025 season.
However, the YZR-M1 required further strengthening in competition, leading to the parallel development of a V4 version of the YZR-M1 throughout the season, with Andrea Dovizioso and Augusto Fernandez rigorously testing the new bike.
Yamaha entered the YZR-M1 V4 version in three wildcard MotoGP races in 2025. Each time, under Fernandez’s riding, the results were promising. Post-season testing in Valencia also received positive feedback from the team's main riders.
Quartararo, who has high expectations, noted that everyone must still work hard to optimize the new bike. Meanwhile, teammates Alex Rins and Jack Miller have sensed the full potential of the YZR-M1 V4 version.
Additionally, Yamaha signed three-time World Superbike Champion Toprak Razgatlıoğlu, a Turkish rider, to the Pramac Yamaha team, where he delivered excellent test results.
Yamaha's bold decision to switch from the Inline-4 engine to the YZR-M1 V4 represents a significant milestone aimed at rewriting their history and reclaiming MotoGP greatness from 2026 onward, ahead of the 2027 engine capacity rule change to 850cc.
Meanwhile, in the 2025 World Superbike Championship, Yamaha continues to compete strongly at the top level with the YZF-R1 bike, piloted by Italian Andrea Locatelli and Jonathan Rea.
A major turning point in production racing was the launch of the new YZF-R9 supersport bike, which made a sensational debut in the 2025 World Supersport Championship.
In its first year at the world championship level, the YZF-R9 made a grand statement by winning the world title thanks to its strong performance and Italian rider Stefano Manzi, who perfectly matched the bike.
Manzi reached the podium 20 times and secured 11 race victories in 2025, amassing 466 points to win the championship decisively. Fellow Yamaha rider Can Öncü of Turkey finished as runner-up with six wins, marking a record-breaking year for Yamaha in the World Supersport arena.
Turning to Asia, the Yamaha Thailand Racing Team once again shook up the Asia Road Racing Championship in 2025. Anupap Samul came close to the championship until the final race, narrowly losing to Malaysian Yamaha rider Kasuma Daniel Kasmayudin on equal points. This was a major achievement for the team following a significant restructuring for the future.
In the Asia Production 250cc class, Kritapat Khun-Kham demonstrated world-class speed, earning the Asian runner-up title. Yamaha also discovered new talent in "Gus" Theeranit Thabtim, who impressed in his wildcard debut at Buriram.
Another key success for Thai Yamaha was being recognized as the Asia-Pacific center for developing young Yamaha riders through the prestigious Yamaha R3 BLU CRU Asia-Pacific program, whose youth competitors have steadily improved each year.
At the end of November, Andrea Dosoli, Yamaha Motor Europe's motorsport head, visited to observe and closely follow Thai Yamaha’s work as overseer of the Yamaha R3 BLU CRU Asia-Pacific project. Thailand received high praise for its event standards and youth rider development methods.
This partnership aims long-term to position Thailand strategically in nurturing Asian rising stars to reach global competition, a proud achievement for Thai Yamaha as the program’s driving force.
Looking back at Yamaha’s 2025 motorsport journey worldwide, this was a year of bold change focused on the crucial goal of becoming the number one in the world across all platforms once again.