Lin Jarvis, Yamaha boss, reveals the real problem on the M1 engine. Fabio Quartararo in Valencia will have to surrender the throne of the MotoGP.

The last round of the 2022 MotoGP season takes place in Valencia. Here the name of the world champion will be decided, with an almost obvious outcome in favor of Pecco Bagnaia and his Ducati. Nevertheless Fabio Quartararo he remained at the top of the standings until the Phillip Island race, when the Frenchman crashed after a personal error and the Piedmontese rival got on the podium behind Alex Rins and Marc Marquez.
Despite a Yamaha M1 clearly inferior to the Ducati GP22, Quartararo has been able to cope with a less powerful and aggressive engine than the V4 manufactured in Borgo Panigale. Yet since the end of the 2021 championship, many appeals had been made to Iwata’s engineers so that during the winter they could improve the performance of the in-line 4-cylinder. But something seems to have gone wrong.
Fabio Quartararo with the 2021 engine

Fabio Quartararo deserves the undisputed credit for having squeezed the maximum Yamaha M1, just think of the results collected in the last two years by various Valentino Rossi, Andrea Dovizioso, Cal Crutchlow, Darryn Binder, Franco Morbidelli. But for the Nice champion it was impossible to keep up with the Ducatis, especially Pecco Bagnaia.
The real problem arose during the preseason, when the latest engine specification developed during the winter break was brought to the track. In an interview with the Spanish edition of Motorsport.com, the managing director Lin Jarvis reveals what really happened at Yamaha. “We had a reliability problem with the engine that we had to introduce in 2022, which is why we were unable to homologate it. There is no point in using a more powerful motor if it is not reliable“.
At that point it was difficult to tell Fabio Quartararo, world champion, that he should have run the entire championship with the 2021 engine. “He obviously didn’t like it“, Continued the team boss Monster Energy Yamaha. “Fabio could have been a lot harder on us than he has been, for this we thank him“. Everyone remembers the long push and pull of signing the contract renewal and the verbal jabs launched at the top of Iwata.
The first reassurances have arrived for the champion of Nice, with the engagement of the engineer Luca Marmorini, which is making a decisive contribution to the development of the engine. In the Jerez and Misano test some evolutions have been brought that have received the consent of Fabio Quartararo. Cal Crutchlow tested in Jerez last week, in Valencia it is not yet known whether there will be a further version. “The final version may not be ready in Valencia. You need more power, but also other things that can’t be achieved in a week“.