Siena, the MotoGP capital: Pramac Racing sets the new trend amid history, music, and Yamaha V4 hopes

History, classical music, and MotoGP. Pramac Yamaha kicked off the packed calendar of 2026 team launches but, more importantly, set the course for the strategic cross-pollinations that will shape the image of the Motorcycle World Championship in the new Liberty Media era.

The veils came off the Yamaha M1 V4, to be ridden by veteran Jack Miller and the acrobatic new entry Toprak Razgatlioglu, at the Accademia Chigiana, a marvelous palazzo in the historic center of Siena. The Chigiana is one of the most prestigious schools in the world, a crossroads of very young talents and great masters. A classical institution founded a century ago, yet propelled toward modernity, given its increasingly close ties with some of the most important composers of Hollywood soundtracks. The presentation was preceded by a mini concert for piano, violin, and cello masterfully performed by three outstanding students. In such a setting, that quarter of an hour was powerfully evocative.

Pramac Racing and Paolo Campinoti played a central role in the MotoGP turning point. The Siena-born team principal served as the link between the world of Formula 1—and thus Liberty Media—and Dorna, which has held plenipotentiary control over MotoGP since 1992. So it is “natural” that Pramac Racing is at the forefront of shaping the new course for the top class of the future. The goal is to broaden the audience, taking bikes where they’ve never been and where you wouldn’t expect them. While staying true to one’s soul and roots: Giacomo Agostini, a 15-time World Champion and still a star in defiance of age, stood on stage with managers and riders, embodying the link between tradition and the new.

To celebrate 25 years of the racing team and 60 years of the parent company, a multinational in generator sets, Paolo Campinoti chose to return to Siena, his hometown, in grand style. It’s a romantically close bond between the only satellite outfit to have won the Riders’ World Championship in the MotoGP era and a community that, even in sports—basketball in particular—was for years a fearsome rival of major metropolises and, after various setbacks, is proudly lifting its head again.

Just over a year ago, Pramac Racing won the World Championship with Jorge Martin. Then, with the uniforms still wet with prosecco, Campinoti bravely left Ducati to take on a difficult and ambitious technical challenge: bringing Yamaha back to where it belongs. This ties Pramac’s industrial activity to a major Japanese manufacturer with a dominant market position in Asia and South America—namely, the most profitable markets for Pramac’s products. “Yamaha must return to where it deserves to be, and we want to contribute to this comeback” is Campinoti’s objective. Catching Ducati, as of today, is a challenge to make your wrists tremble.

The arrival of the new V4 engine naturally inspires hope. “We’re planting the seeds for future victories,” say Yamaha officials. But leaving the old path—the inline-four—for the new one could, at least initially, bring more problems than joys. The project is still far behind; the V4 is very immature. Yamaha can test more than the others thanks to regulatory concessions, but it’s a given that the start of the season will be difficult. The V4 will be a clear step forward from the previous configuration—but by how much? Will there be reliability issues to resolve? Questions that, for now, remain unanswered. With Fabio Quartararo in the factory team and the phenomenon Toprak Razgatlioglu with Pramac, the rider potential is there. The potential of the M1 with its new heart, however, is yet to be discovered.