Fabio Quartararo makes damning 2025 Yamaha MotoGP development assessment

Fabio Quartararo believes the biggest step Yamaha made with its 2025 MotoGP bike came at the 2024 Barcelona post-season test, in a damning assessment of the brand’s progress.

Yamaha came into the new campaign off the back of a positive winter, with its early results hinting at genuine progress towards the front of the field.

Fabio Quartararo, the 2021 world champion, was on the podium at the Spanish Grand Prix and was on course to win the British Grand Prix before a ride height device failure knocked him out while he was in a dominant lead.

Save for a brace of sprint podiums, Yamaha hasn’t returned to a grand prix rostrum since Jerez, while Japanese rival Honda has a victory, a second at Silverstone and third at Motegi to its credit.

Yamaha has been hard at work on its new V4 bike for next year, though Quartararo’s impression of that after the Misano test was not overly positive either.

On Thursday ahead of the Indonesian Grand Prix, Quartararo was asked if he was confident of the progress Yamaha has made with its current package for the run in to the end of the season.

“No, I think the biggest step we did for this year was the 2024 Barcelona test,” he said.

“Then of course we made some improvements.

“But we saw that actually the best moments that we had were the beginning of the year - the first three races [in Europe], that was Le Mans, Jerez and Silverstone.

“Since then we are really struggling. But, like I said, I want to focus on myself and try to improve as a rider.”

One-lap pace has not been an issue for Quartararo in 2025, who has taken four poles and has only started outside of the top six twice since Mugello.

Looking ahead to Mandalika, he added: “Well, last year was tough. The potential was there but we could not really make the tyres work on the rear.

“So, hopefully this year is going to be better.

“But on one lap I know I can be really fast on this track. So, let’s see if we can be fast on the race pace.”