After the obfuscation and plausible deniability of wildcards and testing, Yamaha had to face the reality of where its new V4 project is at during the 2026 MotoGP season opener in Thailand.

It feels like it should have been better-prepared - and that's not a competitive judgement.

The Yamaha was not truly in competition with rival bikes at Buriram. It never threatened for Q2 on Friday or Saturday, was a non-factor in the sprint, and would've left the weekend with zero points if it wasn't rescued by some late-race attrition for rivals on Sunday.

The M1 was obviously the worst MotoGP bike competing at Buriram. It was also the youngest by some margin. Comparisons between this M1 and the inline-four M1 that had started last season are largely unkind - but, in the cold light of day, they are honestly less unkind than they could have been when you take into account the background of the two bikes.

Top Yamaha, 2025 vs 2026 season opener

Friday practice
2025: 8th, +0.465s (Quartararo)
2026: 16th, +1.358s (Quartararo)

Qualifying
2025: 3rd, +0.308s (Miller)
2026: 16th, +1.031s (Quartararo)

Sprint
2025: 7th, +13.437s (Quartararo)
2026: 13th, +13.467s (Miller)

Grand Prix
2025: 11th, +22.315s (Miller)
2026: 14th, +30.823s (Quartararo)

Last year's Yamaha was a very qualifying-biased bike (in Fabio Quartararo's hands predominantly), so the single-lap comparison is a tough one.

But there's certainly nothing embarrassing about how the V4 stacked up over race distances, particularly in the sprint.

"We knew that we will have lost something in the beginning on the flying lap, where we could achieve a very good level last year," said Yamaha managing director Paolo Pavesio on Sunday.

"It's something we were understanding to sacrifice, to give more consistency during the race.

"I would say yesterday [in the sprint] was not too bad, the gap from the first Yamaha to the winner was exactly the same gap as last year. But clearly in the long race we suffered a bit more."

Pavesio standing in front of the media at the end of the weekend was commendable. What was considerably less commendable - and just really, really confusing - was him doing so in lieu of any of the riders carrying out their scheduled Sunday media activities.

"First of all, I'm not the new rider from Yamaha!" he quipped at the start of his media availability. "But I think in this moment, in the beginning of a new journey, and after having our riders give their best for all the weekend, it was correct from a company representative to come, explain where we are with the project.

"That's why today you see me, which you will not see me many times during the season.

"Now we see very clearly from the first racing weekend what is the gap. And we understand that we have quite a mountain to climb - but we are committed, as we were before when we took the decision [to switch to the V4], to take the steps, one after the other.

"Our riders gave 110%, the company is giving 110% and we will keep doing so.

"And this is the only way. There will be no magic. One step after the other, one second after the other, we are determined to grow the project up to the moment we will be competitive again."

Only the team will know what the exact impetus was for the decision not to put the riders up to speak, and ultimately a handful of missed media sessions is hardly a huge deal - even if, as my colleague Simon Patterson rightly pointed out on The Race MotoGP Podcast, it appeared a disservice to Toprak Razgatlioglu in particular to not have him speak after a genuinely encouraging debut MotoGP weekend.

But it also projects an image of 'crisis handling' that Pavesio's own words are trying to shield Yamaha from.

If this isn't a crisis, if these are the expected early hurdles for a manufacturer pivoting to a dramatically new engine design, then why do the riders need to be spared their usual media duties? Are they insufficiently bought in? Are they incapable of staying on-message?

There was no sign of Yamaha riders particularly breaking rank earlier in the weekend. Yamaha has heard worse from Quartararo in particular over 2024 and 2025, and neither he nor any of his stablemates offered particularly scathing assessments here.

The harshest thing Quartararo, whose Honda commitment for 2027 is an open secret, said was: "I think I was a bit too optimistic [before] about the potential of the bike. I know what the potential is, I don't want to go crazy, make some mistakes - especially for my image, that I think is the most important. I try to take everything more easy."

If that's too heavy, Yamaha may as well send him home now. Otherwise, the season is the season, and the situation was always going to be this one barring a miraculous jump in development.

That has not happened. In fact, if there is one alarming thing, it is that the progression from the bike's first public appearance back at Misano last year appears insignificant.

"For me, in September when we tried the bike [in private testing] in Barcelona, the feeling was not super good - that is normal, because the project was brand new," Quartararo had admitted between testing and the opening round. "But the feeling is really, really similar [still] compared to September. Of course we expected to make a much bigger step."

But this too is normal for a bike-from-scratch. It's never as linear as you'd want. It's terrible news for Quartararo - who will leave Yamaha at the end of the year - but it's normal for the company itself, for which this is absolutely not the year to win.

Perhaps it should have prepared itself, and all of MotoGP, better for this new reality.