Yamaha’s MotoGP project is in a state of upheaval: the new racing director, Paolo Pavesio, talks about the goals and expectations for the 2025 season
Yamaha’s MotoGP project has had a difficult few years. But there is now a sense of a fresh start. A lot has happened behind the scenes. Yamaha has realigned its personnel, strengthened its structure and is working on new technologies, such as the V4 engine.
Since Fabio Quartararo’s World Championship success in the 2021 season, Yamaha’s MotoGP project has been in freefall. However, the low point has obviously been overcome. At the Sepang test, promising signals were seen, even though the conditions played into Yamaha’s hands somewhat (according to Ducati, Yamaha is their biggest opponent).
With Paolo Pavesio, Yamaha has a new racing manager at the helm of the project. The Italian has been with the company for 21 years, working in Amsterdam at Yamaha Europe for the past 11 years. Pavesio has clear ideas for the future and Yamaha is providing the necessary resources.
“When I accepted this position, I already knew that Yamaha wanted to shift up a gear in MotoGP. What attracted me most was the desire to bring people from different cultures (Europe, Japan, Italy) together,“
”Our goal is to reduce the gap between us and the leaders. We are in the process of doing so, and that is also reflected in the clock. But the others aren’t standing still either,” adds the Italian, who doesn’t want anyone to be misled by the high in Malaysia. Quartararo deliberately pointed out that the Sepang circuit has a lot of grip and that the Yamaha M1 loses its competitiveness especially when there is little grip.
At the Buriram test, Yamaha faces a much bigger challenge. But the roadmap is clear. Yamaha wants to be more consistent in the top 5 in the 2025 MotoGP season. “Will we win the title in 2025? Certainly not. It would be foolish to aim for that because if you set an unattainable goal, you only create frustration,” notes Pavesio.
“If we continue where we left off in 2024 and go one step further than the others, we can regularly place in the top 5,” the Yamaha racing manager is convinced. ‘That’s our goal: to establish ourselves in the top 5 from the middle of the year. First, we have to overtake Aprilia and KTM.’
