Pour one out, folks, cause a real one is heading to the grave.
Last week, I reported that after a disastrous few seasons in MotoGP, Yamaha was looking for a fresh take on its entry in the guise of a new engine architecture. And that the brand was tinkering with adopting the V4 that has made the top teams, well, the top teams. But that the situation was so dire in Yamaha's eyes, it wasn't going to wait until the new rules come into effect in 2027 to adopt the architecture.
Well, color me surprised it took such a short time, but Yamaha announced this week that it was indeed working on a V4 engine to replace its glorious-sounding crossplane motor. And it's going to replace it soon.
RIP, crossplane.
"The project is on schedule," team boss Lin Jarvis told Motorsport, adding, "That is probably the best way to describe it. I can't describe where we are exactly at but we are on schedule with our planning. The engine is designed, the engine is already being bench-tested. We have not run it on a bike yet, it's not the right time for that yet but we are busy developing and busy designing. When it is ready with the durability testing we will finally start to track test."
As for what caused the switch, Jarvis was pretty blunt.
"When you have all of your competitors running V4 and, as we look to the 2027 regulations, it's important for us to fully understand the potential of a V4 versus the inline four. So, based on that, some time ago we took the decision to start the project," Jarvis relayed.
Yet, again, Yamaha isn't targeting the 2027 rule changes for the introduction of the brand's V4 engine. No, Jarvis said that a running track prototype would likely be seen by mid-2025, which would mean that you'd likely see a V4-powered Yamaha on the MotoGP grid for the 2026 season.
That, according to Jarvis, is to help the team figure out the pros and cons of the architecture, though why spend millions on research and development of your own engine when you could just do competitive research and reverse engineering on already available models? No, a company like Yamaha wouldn't invest in such a project if it wasn't going to go down that road, so a V4 is more than likely what the brand will run in 2027 and beyond.
Moreover, while Jarvis didn't say anything about a street version V4, why wouldn't Yamaha introduce an R1 and R1M with a V4? The brand already highlights its racing prowess with those models, plus this could potentially allow Yamaha to meet Euro 5+ emissions and return the models to locales where they've been reduced to track-only models or killed entirely.
And while it's understandable that Yamaha doesn't want to keep losing in the series with its crossplane, I'll for one miss the engine's sound compared to the rest of the field's V4s. I guess I'll just have to enjoy the ride while it lasts.
