“Now Yamaha need to create the real V4”
Augusto Fernandez says Yamaha will use his wild-card data to create the 'real' V4 for MotoGP 2026.
The last of Augusto Fernandez’s three wild-cards on Yamaha’s new V4 prototype concluded with 16th place in the Valencia season finale.
That result was midway between the 14th at Misano and 18th at Sepang, and over 20-seconds from the top M1 of Jack Miller, who brought the Inline4 machine’s home in seventh on its MotoGP farewell.
Although Fernandez had a new chassis for Valencia, the conservative engine output was the same as his previous outings.
“I think on Friday we performed quite good, but in the end we arrived to a limit that we know what the next step is,” said Fernandez.
Earlier in the weekend, the Spaniard explained that his main issue was front confidence: “It's very critical…. I think we understood well the weak point.”
The conclusion was the same on Sunday evening: “It's not a secret at all. The front is what we're missing.
“We can cover it by a soft tyre, some setup. We can put patches. But we have a clear direction to take now in the winter.”
He added: “The pace is not super far, don't forget we don't have the [full] engine.
“There's a lot of things that we don't have and the bike is not behaving that bad.
“I'm curious to see what the other guys say and hopefully they can confirm what I've been telling the factory to work on for the winter.”
Although the race riders will try the current V4 during testing on Tuesday (official) and Wednesday (private), Fernandez made clear the Yamaha engineers are yet to create the ‘real’ V4.
“With all the data that we got during all these wild-cards and tests during this year, now they need to create the real V4 package, thinking about what they saw during all this time that we've been on track,” Fernandez said.
“This first package came from the Inline bike. Now we're going to see in the [Sepang] Shakedown the real V4. What Yamaha has in mind.
“Aerodynamics, electronics, everything has to be different. We have enough data.
“I have good feelings on the bike. The lap times are not bad, the engine is not ready. I'm confident that we will have a good bike. Praying for the engine! Because everybody says that it's going to be good. And we need the engine nowadays in MotoGP.
“So hopefully we can have all the package ready for Sepang.”
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Peter has been in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
