Yamaha searching for “new balance” with MotoGP V4 - Jack Miller

Jack Miller’s first official taste of the Yamaha V4 MotoGP bike at the post-race Misano test left him 17th-fastest after an “interesting” day.

Pramac Yamaha’s Miller, plus factory duo Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins, all rode the V4 YZR-M1 at Misano, after Augusto Fernandez gave the bike its race debut last weekend (12–14 September).

Miller says Yamaha is “on the right path” with its new bike, but admitted it is still “very early days” in the new project.

“It has been very interesting for us to have the chance to do the shakedown of the new Yamaha V4 bike,” Jack Miller said after the Misano test.

“It‘s been a good test to understand both the strong points of the machine and the weak ones, trying to maximize the strong areas and improve the weak ones. 

“We are on the right path: the bike is working well, and in some areas we‘ve already made progress compared to this year's YZR-M1, so we are going in a good direction. 

“Coming from the old M1, whose strongest point was corner speed, we are now trying to find a new balance in terms of geometry, weight distribution, and all those aspects. 

“The bike is doing all the right things, now we just need time, as these are still the very early days of the project.”

Pramac Team Director Gino Borsoi said that being a part of this new era for Yamaha in MotoGP was something the Italian squad could take pride in.

“The feeling of this first day with the YZR-M1 V4 prototype was nice from the beginning, because we are starting from a blank sheet of paper,” Borsoi said.

“For us it is very important to give Yamaha some feedback and our point of view regarding this new project. We know it will be a long journey, but we are very proud to be part of this new challenge with Yamaha. 

“Starting from scratch is important for Pramac Racing, because we can put all our effort into developing the bike in the right way. The old YZR-M1 was already a complete bike, but with the new V4 prototype we can provide Yamaha‘s engineers with our feedback to help them.

“Yamaha now has a huge amount of work to do, and we are ready to do our part. 

“Today‘s test was important to begin to understand the direction we need to work in. Jack‘s [Miller] comments are already quite clear: in some areas we‘ve received good feedback and made improvements over the old bike, while in others we know there is still a lot to do.”