Quartararo to debut Yamaha V4 MotoGP engine in Barcelona test

MotoGP world champion Fabio Quartararo will debut the V4 engine Yamaha has been developing for several months in a private test at Barcelona on Monday, it has been confirmed.

The Iwata-based brand initially announced last month that Augusto Fernandez would be racing the V4-powered M1 at the San Marino Grand Prix on 14 September. 

It was expected that on the following Monday, factory riders Quartararo and Alex Rins would get their first taste of the new engine.

However, Yamaha has decided to shorten the timescale, with Quartararo – and presumably Rins –  now set to run the V4 engine at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on 8 September.

The Frenchman confirmed the news on Friday after the opening day of practice in Spain, where he finished 11th and missed out on an automatic entry into Q2 by just 0.003s.

“Everybody is asking me. Everybody knows at the end. It’s not a secret anymore. Yeah, we will test the V4,” said Quartararo, who has been pressuring Yamaha for weeks to speed up the development of the engine.

On Thursday, following his arrival in Barcelona, he insisted that the Japanese manufacturer needs to step up the pace as it plans ahead to introduce the V4-spec bike in 2026.

“Yamaha knows it’s several months behind in developing the V4 engine,” he had emphasised.

Monday’s private test will see Yamaha and its homegrown rival Honda sharing the Barcelona track. It just so happens that Barcelona was the same venue where Fernandez put the first version of the new M1 on track a few months ago – although the bike has since been fine-tuned.

The data Yamaha will collect on Monday will help the engineers evaluate the progress on the bike in the last few months.

It has two key objectives, which are interrelated: take its prototype a step forward in terms of performance and hope that the improvements convince Quartararo to renew his contract beyond next season.

Quartararo: “One of the worst sessions of the year”

Before hitting the track on Friday morning, both Quartararo and Yamaha were already aware of the difficulties they would encounter at the Barcelona track.  This was mainly because of the low-grip nature of the circuit.

“Clearly, this morning was one of the worst sessions,” he said. “This afternoon was a bit better, but unfortunately, on the last two laps, I [encountered] two yellow flags in sector 1 [and] could not really make a second lap.

“It’s never easy, but I think that [second lap] will have been good [to take me] into Q2.”