By some very specific metrics, Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo was the most valuable rider in MotoGP in 2025.

Marc Marquez was pretty clearly the best, and Ducati felt his absence in those final rounds. But if it emerged tomorrow that Marquez is secretly an android infused with Skynet tech and has to be disqualified from last year's classification, Ducati still wins the riders' and manufacturers' title (and the teams' title through Gresini).

In relative terms in the manufacturers' standings, Quartararo was the most additive rider last year.

MotoGP 2025 riders by impact of exclusion from manufacturers' points count*

Ducati
M Marquez -18.2%
A Marquez -6.5%
Bagnaia -2.1%
Di Giannantonio -1.7%
Aldeguer -1.6%
Morbidelli 0%

Aprilia
Bezzecchi -42.6%
Fernandez -7.5%
Ogura -5.3%
Martin 0%

KTM
Acosta -34.4%
Vinales -5.4%
Binder -5.4%
Bastianini -3.0%

Honda
Marini -26.0%
Zarco -25.6%
Mir -16.5%
Chantra 0%

Yamaha
Quartararo -44.1%
Miller -7.7%
Rins -4.9%
Oliveira -0.8%

*The number represents the share of manufacturers' points the manufacturer would lose if the rider in question recorded all the same results for another brand and was not replaced (ie Yamaha going from 247 points with Quartararo to 138 without)

Quartararo had what sure looked like the worst bike in MotoGP and used it to beat all the Hondas, several KTMs and several Aprilias in the championship. He scored as many poles as all of those manufacturers combined - and he lost a nailed-on win at Silverstone to a technical failure, a win that would have lifted him above Fermin Aldeguer's Ducati in the standings into eighth place.

So that's his 'Most Valuable Player' (or maybe not so much MVP as MVR - Most Valuable Rider) case. But there's also a least-valuable rider, least-return-on-investment, case.

In the manufacturers' standings, all Quartararo's heroics accomplished was lifting Yamaha from a truly awful fifth to a competitive-but-still-distant fifth.

Remove Marco Bezzecchi and Aprilia is last. Remove one of Johann Zarco, Luca Marini, Joan Mir and Honda is last. Remove Quartararo and an already-bad Yamaha season is simply made worse, albeit with the added external pressure of continually letting down a star rider removed.

Quartararo is thought to be the highest-paid MotoGP rider right now and he's worth it in a vacuum, just like Marquez was at Honda. But just like Marquez at Honda, he has recently been reduced to a putting-lipstick-on-a-pig role - which is just not that valuable.

And it's brought a lot of negative PR with it.

Quartararo has had a very particular way of talking about his predicament. He will not raise his voice; on the tone spectrum of 'top riders on disappointing bikes', he is somewhere between the ultra-measured Honda-era Marquez and the firebrand, fairly sulky early-last-year Pedro Acosta.

Things are said with a smile. But they are said, and hardly any topics are off-limits. Is the bike good? No, and you'll hear it. Is this Yamaha's last chance? Yes, and you'll hear it. Do other manufacturers have a good shot at his signature? Yes, and you'll hear it. Riders tend to sugarcoat - Quartararo does not.

He never saw fit to highlight much in the way of positives through the 2025 season, whether in the state of the inline-four-engined bike or the progress of the V4 prototype.

The best way to avoid that through 2025, or the three years prior, would've been a better bike. But that did not happen. And Paolo Pavesio, who has replaced the long-serving Lin Jarvis as the figure in charge, has been clear that outward frustration is not particularly welcome.

"When you are eager to get results, you can be frustrated by the fact results are not coming as quick as you wish. This is valid for a rider, this is valid for an engineer, this is valid for a manager. But frustration doesn't generate any positive energy. For anyone," Pavesio told The Race towards the end of the season.

"So, that's one of the interesting things of the season like this, and maybe my job is to try to catalyse energy to generate positive output.

"Frustration doesn't help in this perspective. Despite the fact you can understand frustration - of course, but finally, what does it bring? We need to stay united, we need to energise the people.

"Sometimes in Italy we say, if you pat someone on the shoulder, it's better than a kick in the ass. Because finally you get more back."

Clearly, there were some behind-the-scenes words, too, and it appeared over the last couple of rounds that Quartararo was deliberately more mellow in what he said.

But his ability to bite his tongue and buy in will be truly stress-tested during the pre-season, unless Yamaha's new V4 vastly outperforms expectations.

"To be honest, if we can leave [the first test at] Sepang being in a similar position to the one we were in the beginning of the [2025] season, we will have achieved a lot," Pavesio told The Race at the start of the off-season.

"The M1 was pretty fast at the end of its journey. But what we missed clearly is consistency in the races and capability to manager the races.

"We know the V4 will bring with it some potential pluses in that area. If we can come close to the [outright] speed, then it's a good starting point in that area. But most important is this is a project that must have, will have, potential to grow."

Pavesio has also repeatedly and consistently emphasised the value of 2026 as a building block for 2027, when the new 850cc engine regulations come in and everyone is expected to field V4 engines - thus Yamaha needing this 'trial run' in the final season of the 1000cc/Michelin era.

Pavesio said that renewing Quartararo's deal, which like almost all of them expires at the end of 2026, will be "very important, for sure". But Yamaha's position is also that currently tying down riders under longer-term contracts is "not the target", and that it's happy to let the progress of its project do the talking in making itself an attractive 2027 destination.

"I never make a secret of the fact that having Fabio with us would be very nice also for post-'26 seasons," said Pavesio. "But this conversation will happen as soon as things will also be more clear from a technical perspective, which I fully understand."

This is a very sound stance - but it does lay the groundwork for separation. And that separation is something not just Quartararo (obviously) has to consider but that Yamaha does too, on its own terms and based on a realistic outlook of what it can realistically accomplish in 2027.

You'd rather have Quartararo than not have Quartararo. This is true for every manufacturer. If he told each of them 'I'll ride for free, in whichever part of the line-up you want', he would have five offers 10 seconds later.

But he won't ride for free. He might ride for cheaper than now, though I'm convinced he will have also grown quite accustomed to a certain level of lifestyle that he'd like to maintain.

Also, though, 'cheaper' and 'cheaper but still at Yamaha' are two very different things. From Yamaha's standpoint, surely it will try to be firmer in negotiations after two seasons of a lot of money put towards Quartararo that brought it relatively little yield.

And this suggests the possibility of a clash - because Quartararo has no real reason to make any concessions. He's done his part, he's lived up to his side of the bargain.

If Yamaha is convinced it will be ready to win from the outset in 2027, then it should pay over the odds for Quartararo. It will need him. But if there's sufficient reasonable doubt, then it should negotiate from a position of strength and be ready to lose Quartararo.

Try for Pecco Bagnaia. Try for David Alonso. See what you have in Toprak Razgatlioglu. Even maybe give Bezzecchi a call, to see if you can outmuscle Aprilia financially like you already did so comfortably during Quartararo's 2025-26 renewal. And feel free to wait and see what Quartararo's own market is - in case you are still his best option.

It has been a desperate MotoGP stretch for Yamaha - but Pavesio sounds well aware of the fact he cannot act in desperation in planning the programme's future, even when it comes to one of the grid's true superstars.