Yamaha’s 2025 MotoGP season was not one to be disappointed with, according to a member of the factory’s management structure.

Yamaha was winless in MotoGP for the third year in succession in 2025, its drought continuing to stretch back to the 2022 German Grand Prix won by Fabio Quartararo.

But it was the Frenchman’s performances in 2025 that proved to Yamaha that it had made progress compared to previous years.

“It has been a really long an tough season,” Monster Energy Yamaha Team Director Maio Meregalli told MotoGP.com.

“We improved a lot the performance of the bike. Fabio [Quartararo] has almost double points compared to [2024], he did five pole positions, he was able to break down some lap records. 

“For sure, we wanted maybe to get a bit more closer with the front, but we lost the possibility to win one race in Silverstone for a really little issue and also in Le Mans– we didn’t capitalise, maybe, on some good occasions. But we cannot be disappointed.”

The second half of the 2025 season saw much of the focus around Yamaha switch to its new V4 engine and developing the bike for 2026.

The V4 featured in official and private tests, and in wildcard appearances in the hands of Augusto Fernandez at Misano, Sepang, and Valencia.

“We also developed in-parallel a new project, and the fact that we were already able to do wildcards in advance, we were able to do wildcards without problems – that already was a big achievement,” Meregalli said.

“For sure, the bike is in the early stages of its life, and also the performance. But we can say that the project is born well. 

“We will use this beginning to develop the bike, then we might expect from the second part of the [2026] season to start performing better and be more competitive. 

“But, as you can imagine, we are moving from one project to another without any knowhow, so we need a lot of information– we need, really, to have the base.”