The inline four-cylinder M1 bids farewell to the MotoGP after two decades of glory, victories, Japanese geniuses and Italian masterpieces. Yamaha enters the V4 era with a bold, expensive and necessary project that looks to 2027 and, perhaps, a new generation of premium street bikes
2025 was the last year of the glorious history of the Yamaha M1 with an inline four-cylinder engine. A farewell that is not only technical but almost sentimental, because that bike built a huge piece of the Yamaha myth. It is the bike of Welcome 2004, the race that rewrote history and opened the era of Valentino Rossi’s victories. It is the motorbike managed by an extraordinary team, with Davide Brivio as conductor and with the genius of Masao Furusawa playing the most important notes: those that transformed the M1 into a precise, extremely agile blade, tailor-made for the Doctor. It was the bike that broke Honda’s dominance. An undertaking that today seems like science fiction, but at the time it almost seemed like a revolution.
Rossi, Lorenzo and Quartararo: one motorbike, three epic chapters
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After Valentino came the years of Jorge Lorenzo, those of geometric perfection. Then Fabio Quartararo, the modern talent who brought Yamaha back to the top of the world in an era in which MotoGP had become an aerodynamic jungle. The M1 won in different ways, with opposing styles, with riders who were incompatible with each other but perfectly compatible with the bike. And this is the secret of the M1: it wasn’t just a project, it was a character.
change the world yamaha
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But today’s MotoGP is no longer that of 2004. Not even that of 2015. Not even that of two seasons ago. The races change, the regulations change, aerodynamics have transformed MotoGP into a wind tunnel discipline. And here the M1 started to suffer: chronic traction problems, limits difficult to overcome with the in-line engine layout due to the impossibility of making the bike narrow enough to be able to mount truly effective wings. There’s no point in beating around the bush, modern MotoGP is made of V4 engines, more compact and better suited to managing the delicate chassis balance of bikes which, to limit wheelie during acceleration, have become low and long.
new yamaha identity
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And then Yamaha made the courageous choice: goodbye to the inline four-cylinder. Welcome era V4. The Iwata company was already thinking about 2027, when the regulations would have imposed the new 850 cc engines. But the first tests were so clear and so merciless that they forced an early decision. Not a single engine. Two. An 850cc V4 for the regulatory future. And a 1000 cc V4 to immediately learn how to live in a world that is no longer that of the traditional M1. Because everything changes: the chassis, the weight distribution, the electronic management. It doesn’t evolve: it starts from scratch.
the 2026 yamaha, and then…
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Yamaha and Quartararo already know it: 2026 will be a year of apprenticeship. We won’t be aiming for the World Cup, at least not immediately. The aim will be to understand the V4, to make it grow, to avoid reaching 2027 with a still immature project. It’s the right choice, but it’s also the most expensive. Two new engines in two years are not a detail. But modern MotoGP doesn’t allow hesitation: whoever slows down disappears. And Yamaha can’t afford this.
the v4 as a road weapon
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And here we are at the most intriguing chapter, the one that makes mass-produced motorcycle enthusiasts perk up. The truth is simple: Yamaha lacks a premium platform. The CP2 and CP3 are great engines, but they’re not enough. The CP4, the irregular inline four-cylinder, retired without being able to face Euro 5. And in the meantime, at Eicma the Chinese from CF Moto presented a V4 Superbike that made everyone’s eyes widen. The risk is real: the Japanese who taught the world how to make a Superbike could find themselves without a high-end product while newcomers fill the void. So here’s the idea: the MotoGP V4 not only as a racing project, but as the basis for a future CV4 platform, capable of generating a Superbike, a maxi-naked, a premium crossover, to begin with. In a word: a return in style.
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