Yamaha has resumed MotoGP testing at Sepang having pulled out of day two of the three-day test following a mechanical issue that presented safety concerns on Tuesday.
After withdrawing from Wednesday running, the team said a decision on whether to run on day three would only be taken on Thursday morning.
But having worked extensively overnight with its engineering teams in both Italy and Japan to find a stopgap solution to the issue, Yamaha was content it could continue testing.
The exact nature of the issue that affected the machine of Fabio Quartararo (absent from the final day of testing due to an unrelated injury sustained on the first morning) remains unclear, but it’s believed by The Race’s sources in the paddock that riders have returned to track with less power and RPM available to them.
Yamaha's first morning back on track at least appeared to run seamlessly for its remaining three riders, with Alex Rins, Jack Miller and Toprak Razgatlioglu completing 74 laps between them. Rins was the fastest of the trio in 12th overall, 1.178 seconds slower than pacesetting Gresini Ducati rider Alex Marquez.
While Yamaha might be running at a slight disadvantage under the temporary solutions put in place, team boss Paolo Pavesio said it was nonetheless key to end the test on track as it continues to learn as much as it can about the wholly new V4 project it is debuting in 2026.
“It was important to resume, but it was also important to be sure of resuming,” Pavesio told The Race.
“Of course we are raising prototypes here, so nothing is always granted. It's not a production machine.
“But we wanted to be sure that let's say the doubts we had were clarified before we were back on track, and it’s super important of course to be back on track because we have a lot of work to do.
“Let's say it was an issue that we could identify by working. This is sometimes the interesting part of working in Japan and in Italy; you can use the night of Japan to work in Italy and the night of Italy to work in Japan and in Sepang. It was a 24 hour journey, but important to close the test on track.”
Though Yamaha has lost out on a day’s track action at the main test, the extra three days permitted to it at the shakedown test last week thanks to its concession status means that Pavesio is still content the team has maximised its pre-season programme going into two more days of testing at Buriram ahead of the opening race.
“I have to say at the end this is a completely new bike even compared with Valencia, so we worked a lot in the winter,” he stressed.
“It was important to identify if all the new things were properly working, and working together, and I have to say as the base bike to start the season we got the information that we needed.
“The feedback of the riders is looking pretty consistent, which is quite important because on a new project, the more you can achieve the target of setting a base bike which is similar for all of them, the better then you can gather more consistent data.”
