Fabio Quartararo names “biggest step” during Inline Yamaha’s final MotoGP season

Fabio Quartararo admits he is unsure whether he will miss Yamaha’s Inline MotoGP machine once the factory switches to a V4 next season.

That verdict, the Frenchman says, will depend entirely on the performance of the new bike.

“Maybe I'm gonna miss it or not! We don't know how is next year's bike,” Quartararo said in the closing stages of the 2025 season.

“Of course, it will be good to switch to the V4, but maybe next year, I will miss this bike!

“It will also be a new step in my career, so let's see.”

Quartararo has spent his entire MotoGP career on an Inline Yamaha, celebrating 11 wins, 32 podiums and the 2021 world championship title.

After a best result of fifth place in 2024, he returned to the podium at Jerez this season and was on course for victory at Silverstone, before a ride-height device failure sunk his chances.

Although two Sprint rostrums followed, Quartararo acknowledged that Yamaha’s development focus increasingly shifted away from the outgoing Inline M1.

“I think the engineers were more focused on the 2026 bike,” he said. “So unfortunately, the improvement of the bike [during the 2025 season] was quite low.

“But I hope it's for a good reason, to have a really performing bike for 2026.”

Asked to identify the most meaningful progress during the Inline machine’s final campaign, Quartararo pointed to electronics.

“Step by step, we improved a bit on the engine power. Unfortunately, not enough, but we worked a lot, especially on the electronics, during this year.

“So the biggest step that we did was the electronics, to understand how I can adapt better, to be faster with less electronics. So this, I would say, was the biggest step that we did.”

Quartararo finished the season ninth in the world championship, but scored nearly twice as many points as in 2024. The next best Yamaha rider was Pramac’s Jack Miller, in 17th.