Does Yamaha's new V4 MotoGP project put it at risk of discarding all the progress it had made since its mid-2022 fall from grace?
It's a possibility that's difficult to ignore after its best weekend in nearly two seasons, a Spanish Grand Prix where Fabio Quartararo converted pole into second place - which came just a week after the V4 engine that's supposed to replace the trusty inline-four was put through its paces by tester Augusto Fernandez at Valencia.
Yamaha is not necessarily 'pot-committed' to the V4. According to Fernandez, the actual bike design around the V4 project remains at a very immature stage, and there's been the consistent assertion from Yamaha chiefs that the V4 bike will only replace the current M1 once it's quicker.
As it stands, it is still a ways away from being raced in a wildcard by Fernandez, much less handed over to the factory riders.
But to hear those riders - or Fernandez - talk, the switch to V4 was being discussed as an inevitability, a jolt that was needed for a Yamaha MotoGP design whose progress has flickered from incremental to non-existent in the last five years.
Could Quartararo's heroics change that, and do they at least justify Yamaha's insistence on a costly parallel development programme that - depending on where you stand - feels like either an enormous show of commitment to MotoGP and winning again or a remarkable display of money-burning vanity?
The matter of Quartararo's weekend
The current Yamaha M1 now possesses the best MotoGP lap in the history of the Jerez circuit, with Quartararo's 1m35.610s equating to the most stunning qualifying performance MotoGP has seen in a long time.
It was repeatable, given Quartararo's next-best lap in that session was just 0.074s slower, though I would caution against reading into the qualifying potential of the M1 at Jerez as a 'true' Ducati-beater.
This is because Marc Marquez didn't quite string a lap together on the second run and because, unlike Quartararo, Ducati riders have more of an incentive to leave a sliver of margin in their Q2 attempts. Quartararo had every reason to go for pole without fearing the repercussions of a post-crash 12th-place start, but for either of the Marquezes or Pecco Bagnaia that kind of thing carries heavy championship implications.
Quartararo's natural affinity for Jerez should also not be understated.
The CEV Moto3 title he won as a 14-year-old was sealed at Jerez with a 9.4-second win that allowed him to leapfrog four riders - including familiar names like Maria Herrera and Marcos Ramirez - in the standings.
The Moto3 pole that made him the category's youngest-ever poleman? Jerez. The MotoGP pole that did likewise for the MotoGP record books? Jerez (pictured above). First win? Jerez. Second win a week later? Jerez.
He has not been untouchable there ala prime Marquez at the Sachsenring or Austin but it's certainly treated him well, particularly on pre-decline Yamaha M1s. And of course its small straights and twisty nature make it a reasonable fit for the Yamaha.
But if the M1 and its inline-four hadn't made real strides, finishing 1.6s off the win and seeing off Pecco Bagnaia would not have been plausible - and the latest from Yamaha is that the next iteration of the engine, which ran in the post-race test, is even better.
More margin for the inline-four?
Quartararo's team-mate Alex Rins, whose wholly unimpressive Spanish GP weekend was completely conditioned by a bad crash in practice, sang the praises of the new engine on Monday.
He estimated a 2km/h improvement that, along with set-up changes, contributed to what he pointed out was an impressive half-second laptime improvement (although Rins is comparing practice to testing here as he barely rode in qualifying).
Yamaha has already had top speed on offer, seemingly delivered by its engine consultant Luca Marmorini, but the speed trap figures its inline-four was producing last year had to be basically dialled out in-season because the bike was being made uncompliant.
Its current priority - as it seems to be for any underpowered MotoGP manufacturer - is reclaiming some of that top speed without making the bike unwieldy again, and the Jerez test spec is being acknowledged as a step, though Quartararo has cautioned that the compact Spanish track just isn't a good place to compare engines.
The French Grand Prix weekend at Le Mans might give a better picture.
Can this really last?
The burst of life from the inline-four M1 engine means that it will be ever more tempting for Yamaha to - borrowing a Slavic turn of phrase here - 'sit on two chairs' for as long as possible.
But it would soon start to run out of runway here, for two separate reasons.
Firstly, if the inline-four continues to show big improvements - and if the upgraded spec stuns at Le Mans - Yamaha will get itself out of 'Rank D' concession status.
Currently it's under no immediate threat of 'upgrading', and even despite Jerez and despite it being second in the manufacturers' standings it is still on pace across 2025 to stay in 'Rank D'. But if the inline-four shows enough, it will take it to 'Rank C', which will then make it subject to the engine freeze rules - in addition to other restrictions - to start next year.
Secondly, and maybe more importantly, this rules cycle is almost over anyway. If there's a title tilt coming with the 1000cc V4, it must be next year. By definition. And it feels like it would be extremely presumptuous for Yamaha to believe that it can reel in Ducati while working two simultaneous engine projects while the likes of Aprilia, KTM and Honda have all failed to do so while focusing on one.
There's also the expectation in some corners of the MotoGP paddock that the way the 2027 850cc rules are drawn up, the new aero dimensions in particular will box factories into a V4 future by rewarding its longer, narrower nature.
New recruit Jack Miller, who has been the most vocal of the Yamaha riders in insisting it can still thrive with an inline-four, said at Jerez: "Everybody else is on V4s, so it seems like there's got to be something to it - but, as I said then and I stand by it, an inline-four won the championship in... 'Meerkat' [Joan Mir] won it in 2020 and then Fabio won it in '21.
"Obviously the biggest issue, let's say, is the width. And going forward... you can't make it any narrower. That's the issue you have. That's physics. You can't adjust that.
"But you can produce, let's say, different characters. There's different ways to skin a cat. You can try to extract in different areas of the circuit.
"Will it ever be the fastest thing in a straight line? Probably not. But it's about limiting that distance, I guess you could say."
Those baked-in characteristics are still something Quartararo in particular is clearly a little tired of - and for all of the positives of the Jerez weekend, he did get overtaken on the main straight for the win.
Quartararo's word will carry a lot of weight for Yamaha as he's its ticket to future championships. At the start of the Jerez weekend, he was fairly unequivocal in his desire for a V4 future. He was less committed post-race - though I'll let you judge whether that was genuine hesitation or simply careful wording.
"Which one I prefer, I don't know - I didn't test the new one," he said. "But it's true that one thing we have to improve, I don't know if it's the V4 or with our current bike, is the way to approach the corners. We are braking a lot with the front and we are not using the rear on the braking.
"And also when we are alone, the riding style is quite OK - but as soon as you make a small mistake on the brakes, when the bike slides it's really aggressive... so, like I said, I think the V4 is the way to be the most similar to the riding style [of our rivals].
"But I just want to have a fast bike and be fighting with these guys. It's going to be difficult - and I hope that they [Yamaha] can manage the best way as possible with the parallel two projects."
Tester Fernandez spoke post-race too and, while he was full of admiration for Quartararo's weekend, he continued to be candid about the inline-four versus V4 debate.
"Everybody believes - and I believe - this is the way," he said of the V4.
That feels like the clarity Yamaha's future needs.
