Quartararo takes another swipe at Yamaha: "The M1 V4 has no potential"

Quartararo heads to Jerez with no particular expectations; it will be another survival weekend, and there’s no shortage of a fresh jab at Yamaha.

The 2026 season will be quite complicated for Yamaha, which for the first time in the MotoGP era is using a V4 engine and has yet to reach a good level of competitiveness. The riders are very frustrated at not being able to show their true potential, and certainly the one suffering most from the situation is Fabio Quartararo, world champion in 2021 and runner-up in 2022. He has already decided to leave the Iwata team to join Honda in 2027, but there’s a long championship to contest before he goes.

This weekend MotoGP stops at Jerez, where he won his first premier-class race in 2020, but the scenario is completely different today. The Frenchman reiterates that he sees no potential in the current M1 and as a result is struggling: “The only thing we can do is keep giving our maximum,” reports Motosan, “and try to get the best possible result. It’s difficult, because I know my potential, I know what I can do. I like racing, but unfortunately I’m not enjoying it like last year. I don’t feel comfortable on the bike and I can’t do what I want. If there’s no potential but I feel good on the bike, it’s not that bad; otherwise, it gets difficult.”

The 2025 M1, the one that still had the inline-four engine, had flaws that nonetheless sometimes allowed him to be competitive. There’s a big difference between that prototype and the V4: “Like night and day,” Quartararo explains. “Last year’s bike wasn’t great in certain areas, like power and rear traction. Now, though, we see that the potential absolutely doesn’t exist. We’re working to try to improve, but as far as I’m concerned, I have no feeling with the front. At the moment, I’m a bit lost in that area. I hope we can find a solution so I can get back to giving 100%, regardless of the results.”

In 2025 at Jerez he took pole position and then finished second in the long race. The 2021 MotoGP champion knows he won’t be at that level this weekend: “I don’t think we’ll achieve positive results like last year, when we were very fast with the inline-four. To be honest, I prefer not to look at the data, because we’re too far behind. It’s a completely different bike, but as a rider I know where I’m slower. I already know how much we’ll lose compared to last year.”

On Thursday, Alex Rins confirmed that he will no longer be with the Yamaha team in 2027, something he learned from the press and that was only later confirmed to him by team manager Massimo Meregalli. Quartararo responded to the matter as follows: “I won’t go into the details of the decision. But only a few of us know what the bike is like and what it was like last year. It’s difficult to judge the results by comparing our bike with the others. Last year we got a few poles, but the bike wasn’t great. I believe choosing a rider based on last year’s results is not the right decision, but fortunately, I’m not the one who has to make those kinds of decisions.”

As is known, Jorge Martin and Ai Ogura will arrive in the Yamaha garage, and there will be a complete lineup change. We’ll have to see who will join Toprak Razgatlioglu in the Prima Pramac team; Jack Miller’s confirmation is uncertain, and a promotion for Izan Guevara from Moto2 is not ruled out.

Quartararo will go to the factory Honda HRC team, though it’s not yet known who his teammate will be. Today it seems unlikely that either Luca Marini or Joan Mir will remain. We’ll also have to see whether there will be six RC214Vs on the grid, given that there’s a negotiation to pry Tech3 away from KTM as a satellite team. If that operation were to materialize, several interesting scenarios would open up.

The original article with the interview in Spanish on Motosan.es