The startling improvements for MotoGP’s struggling Japanese marques in 2025

The first half of the 2025 season has come to a close, with the big headline being the dominance of Ducati’s Marc Marquez after the opening 12 rounds.

The eight-time world champion has maintained Ducati’s stranglehold on the standings in 2025, winning eight grands prix, 11 sprints and taking a lead in the title race of 120 points heading into the summer break.

As Marc Marquez continues to extend his advantage in the championship, the spotlight is thrust onto Ducati’s immediate rivals now to see whether or not they can offer any kind of substantial challenge in the final 10 rounds of the campaign.

But away from all of that, there is another unofficial battle raging for MotoGP’s ‘Japanese Cup’ between Yamaha and Honda.

A term originally coined by frustrated riders from both camps to highlight the fact that the grid had effectively split into two categories given the struggles of Honda and Yamaha, it’s become clear in the first 12 rounds of 2025 that this gap has evaporated.

Concessions brought in for last year were aimed specifically at helping Honda and Yamaha find better form, having slid down the pack in recent years following decades of dominance in the premier class.

Both manufacturers made some substantial behind-the-scenes changes to help their causes. Yamaha brought in Gigi Dall’Igna’s former right-hand man Max Bartolini as technical director in 2023, in a move to bring more of a European mentality to development. Arguably his biggest influence has been the development of a new V4, breaking Yamaha’s decades of sticking exclusively to an inline-four engine design.

Yamaha also snared a satellite team for the first time since 2022 in the from of Pramac to field two more factory M1s on the grid this season.

At Honda, it beefed up its test team with the addition of Aleix Espargaro and Takaaki Nakagami. It also signed Romano Albesiano from Aprilia as technical director, and in recent weeks looks to have acquired former KTM engine chief Kurt Trieb - architect of MotoGP’s fastest ever motor.

How Yamaha and Honda compare in 2025 to 2024

While both manufacturers are still some way from being able to challenge for titles, and even podiums on a regular basis, the first half of 2025 has seen a stark improvement for Yamaha and Honda.

The table below compared the first 12 rounds of 2025 to the first 12 rounds of 2025.

After 12 rounds of 2024, Honda hadn’t event cracked the top 10, while inside five in 2025 it won its first grand prix since 2023. Though Johann Zarco’s French Grand Prix triumph was in the wet, at the British Grand Prix in the dry a few weeks later he was second.

Over 100 points better off than at the same stage last year, Honda is scoring almost 10 points better on average per round than it was. Its current haul of 147 is 72 more than it scored for the entirety of the 2024 campaign, where its best result was an eighth in the wet.

Yamaha, by contrast, was on a slightly better footing in 2024. Fabio Quartararo had scored a best of seventh in Portugal and was a major reason for its tally of 62 points after 12 rounds and an average finishing position two spots better off than Honda.

In 2025, Fabio Quartararo’s second at the Spanish Grand Prix remains its highlight - though a victory was on the cards at the British Grand Prix, before a ride height device failure forced him to retire from a dominant lead.

Yamaha’s one-lap speed has also been excellent this year, with Quartararo on pole four times. But converting that into results hasn’t been as straightforward, with the M1’s lack of grip at the start of races hindering its progress.

That said, Yamaha is up from 5.2 points per round after 12 races in 2024 to 11.08 this season and is averaging eighth in grands prix. It has also scored 71 points more than it managed at the same stage last season and had already surpassed its 2024 total of 124.

At the end of last year, no rider from either marque was inside the top 10 in the standings. Quartararo was 13th, while Zarco was Honda’s best in 17th. At present, both sit eighth and ninth, split by seven points.

What next for Yamaha and Honda?

What remains evident from the first half of 2025 compared to much of 2024, is that both Yamaha and Honda are being massively propped up by one rider.

In the second half of last year, Zarco emerged as Honda’s leading light and best development head, while Quartararo’s title-winning speed has arguably made Yamaha look better than it actually is.

Towards the final few races before the summer break, Honda has generally dropped off in terms of pace compared to where it was at the start of the season. Yamaha has remained fairly consistent, though, again, Quartararo is a large reason for that.

In the early part of the season, Yamaha and Honda were able to take advantage of fairly average starts for the likes of Aprilia and KTM. But both of those manufacturers have now picked up in form, reducing podium opportunities for the Japanese brands.

Top speed for both remains a key weakness, while both are seemingly still searching for better rear grip.

Honda will be hoping its signing of Kurt Trieb from KTM will bring it gains in this area, while Yamaha still looks to be hedging its bets on the V4 project. Both will continue to have concessions for the rest of the season, and will very likely do so again in 2026 unless it comes into a run of very big results in the final 10 rounds.

With the 850cc regulations just around the corner for 2027, this is being seen as a true reset point for Honda and Yamaha to get to the front again. That can’t happen without solid foundations from the rest of this season and next year.

But current form suggests both manufacturers are on the right path, to the point where they are even being touted amid major rider market rumblings. Pecco Bagnaia’s name has been linked to a Yamaha move on several occasions, while Jorge Martin was reportedly looking to break contract with Aprilia to join Honda next season.

Yamaha has also been able to snare a big name signing for 2027 in the form of double World Superbike champion Toprak Razgatlioglu. That’s a risky move for the Turkish superstar, but one that wouldn’t have been made without some belief in the Yamaha project being competitive over the next few years.

While clearly needing to do much more to get to where they want to be, Yamaha and Honda are at least heading in the right direction.