Fabio Quartararo’s lap time from Barcelona V4 test

Lap times have emerged from Yamaha’s behind-closed-doors Barcelona test, where Fabio Quartararo made his long-awaited debut on the new V4 prototype.

After rain limited the morning action, Quartararo reportedly topped the afternoon session with a best lap time of 1m 39.4s. 

It is assumed that time was set with the V4, although there was no media access or official comment from Yamaha.

"Everybody knows, so it's not a secret anymore; I will test the V4 on Monday," Quartararo had confirmed during the Catalan Grand Prix weekend.

He also made clear that Yamaha is now "fully focused on the V4. I think we’ll have nothing to test [on the current bike] from now until the end of the season."

Due to the big swing in performance between new and old tyres at Barcelona, plus the unsettled weather, it’s hard to make much of a comparison with Quartararo's race weekend times on the M1. 

However, Quartararo set a 1m 37.8s to qualify on the front row, then a Sprint best lap time of 1m 38.9s (soft rear tyre, 2nd place finish) and a grand prix fastest lap of 1m 40.4s (medium rear tyre, 5th place finish).

Quartararo is sure to be quizzed on the V4 test when he arrives at Misano on Thursday. The first official lap times will then appear in Friday morning’s FP1, when test rider Augusto Fernandez takes to the track as a wild-card.

"I know [the V4 is] the future bike of ’26," Quartararo said. "It’ll be great to see Augusto racing it."

Yamaha and Honda were the only manufacturers at the private Barcelona test, where Quartararo finished 0.7s clear of the next best rider, LCR Honda’s Johann Zarco. 

Zarco was expected to try the latest RC213V chassis for the first time on Monday.

HRC team-mates Luca Marini and Joan Mir were a fraction slower than Zarco, with Quartararo’s team-mate Alex Rins, also thought to be on the V4, exactly 1.0s behind.

Quartararo will return to the V4 next Monday during the official Misano test, when he has targeted a gap of less than half a second to the current bike.

“I think that if I try it and I'm less than half a second off my lap time, I think it's a good step,” the Frenchman had said during the Hungarian MotoGP weekend.

If all goes well at Misano, there have been suggestions that Quartararo and/or other Yamaha riders might switch to developing the V4 for the remaining rounds of this season.

However, although Yamaha's D concession status allows freedom to change engine design, they are limited to two fairing updates per season. "We've used all the aero evolutions," Quartararo admitted.

With a V4 engine narrower but longer than the Inline M1, it's unlikely that the bikes could share the same fairing.

Meanwhile, looking ahead to this weekend's Misano round, Quartararo said: 

"Overall, the Catalan GP weekend was really positive. The team did a great job after a difficult Friday to make it a great Saturday and also a good Sunday. 

"For this GP, I hope we can start off the weekend in the right way in FP1. I really like this track because of the good memories I have of this place.

"I hope we can get straight into Q2, get the best starting position possible, and then enjoy the actual racing again."