Monster Energy Yamaha officially unveiled its 2026 M1 and team livery at a factory presentation in Jakarta on Jan. 21, 2026, streaming the launch live. The new livery keeps Yamaha’s blue-and-black identity but shifts to a predominantly black design with Yamaha blue and added white accents, including more blue around the front fairing. Most notably, the factory revealed a modern-era V4-powered M1, ending Yamaha’s inline-four era that began with MotoGP’s four-stroke regulations in 2002; the V4 project began roughly two years ago and the motor and chassis were developed over more than a year. A V4 prototype ran late in 2025 in wildcard outings for test rider Augusto Fernández — scoring a point at Misano and appearing at Sepang and Valencia — and factory riders sampled the machine before Yamaha confirmed the change at the end of the 2025 season.

Yamaha and team officials presented the V4 as a technical reset intended to restore competitiveness, saying the new package should bring a return of “full” engine power and significant changes to handling and performance. They tempered immediate expectations, indicating the V4 represents a longer-term development direction whose full payoff may arrive over coming seasons rather than instantly in 2026. Under the 2026 regulations Yamaha sits in the most generous concession rank (D), giving it greater testing and development opportunities during the season — an advantage the factory plans to use with scheduled on-track checks at Sepang involving Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins alongside Pramac riders Jack Miller and Toprak Razgatlıoğlu.

The launch was framed around both technical ambition and urgent sporting needs. Yamaha has not won a premier-class race since mid-2022 and slipped toward the bottom of the manufacturers’ standings, prompting the change. Fabio Quartararo, retained for 2026, ended 2025 ninth with 201 points, five poles and Yamaha’s first podium in two years at Jerez; he has stressed the need for a faster, more consistent package able to deliver regular top-3 and top-5 results after a string of setbacks including a ride-height failure at Silverstone. Alex Rins, also kept by the factory, arrives after a difficult run through 2024–25 — he finished 19th in 2025 with a season-best seventh at Phillip Island — though his career includes six MotoGP wins and the final inline-four premier-class victory (Valencia 2022) as well as a V4 win for Honda at COTA in 2023. With Quartararo’s contract situation and other rider options being discussed publicly, Yamaha positions 2026 as a development year for the V4 M1 aimed at rebuilding pace and reliability before a full return to consistent front-running results.

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