Who has progressed the most between Yamaha and Honda?

Ducati's rise to the top of MotoGP coincided with the fall of the Japanese manufacturers. Long unavoidable forces in the championship and favorites for the title, Yamaha and Honda have gradually slipped in the hierarchy and are now competing to avoid occupying last place, far from their three European rivals.

Honda's domination of the championship came to an abrupt end with the injury of Marc Márquez at the start of a 2020 season that seemed promised to him. Subsequently, the victories – three for the Spaniard in 2021, one for Álex Rins in 2023 – and even the podiums became rarer, until becoming illusory in 2024.

At Yamaha, Fabio Quartararo won the title in 2021 and he remained in contention against Pecco Bagnaia the following year but by mid-season, he was no longer able to get on the top step of the podium. In 2024, it was even inconceivable to see him play on this podium.

This regression has often been attributed to the approach specific to Japanese firms, reluctant to sudden changes and the adoption of methods from outside. The situation has started to evolve behind the scenes: Yamaha's technical department has been led by Max Bartolini, a former Ducati man, for a year, while Honda stops to welcome Romano Albesiano, who held the same position at Aprilia. .

MotoGP also reacted by adjusting its concession system to offer significant advantages to the two brands for their development, without very convincing results on the track for the moment. Yamaha and Honda nevertheless showed encouraging signs in the last races of the season, with a top 10 which became playable again.

In 2024, Honda thus scored 26 points in the constructors' championship in the first ten meetings of the season and 49 in the following ten, with a clearly upward trajectory. To a lesser extent, this was also the case at Yamaha, with 57 points in the first half of the season and 67 in the second.

By comparing the delay of the first driver of each of the two brands during each Test session, the only one of the weekend bringing together all the drivers and with a stopwatch objective to try to qualify directly in Q2, we perceive a similar evolution .

In the first half of the year, the best-placed Yamaha rider had an average deficit of 0.78% on the leader, which only evolved marginally in the last ten weekends, to go to 0 .79%. At Honda, this delay went from 1.17% to 0.86%. On one lap, we can therefore conclude that Honda has made the biggest progress… while remaining behind Yamaha.

From an accounting standpoint, the Iwata firm is clearly in the “less bad” situation, with a total of 124 points against 75 for its rival but according to Quartararo, the Honda has a technical advantage over the Yamaha. In Sepang, at the end of the season, he even judged the difference to be glaring.

“Actually, I think in terms of performance the Honda is much faster than the Yamaha, and especially on this circuit where there aren't really any fast corners, apart from the 4”he explained during the Malaysian weekend. “But, for example, in the last corner where the bike really has to stop straight, turn and accelerate, I think the Honda's grip is much better than ours and on a track like that, it's something more important.”

Rins, who ditched the Honda for the Yamaha in 2024, also felt the Honda had “better grip on the angle, better traction and more top speed” this year, having also noticed a development in favor of the RC213V at the end of the season. “For a few races, I have already told the team that they have better mechanical grip than us, and that on tracks like [Barcelone]where the grip is very weak, they seem to have an advantage over us”analyzed the Spaniard during the last Grand Prix of the season.

The Yamaha pilots' observation finds a certain echo on the Honda side. Luca Marini believes that his rivals started with an advantage and benefited from Quartararo's great experience but that during the season, Honda made greater progress on his machine… without taking the advantage.

“We were always a step behind because they started from much higher than us”declared the Italian. “We have made a lot of progress, we have reduced the gap but we are still not at their level. I also think that they developed the bike during the season, they did not stand still. They continue to work a lot and their bike has progressed, like ours.”

“I think we have made more progress than Yamaha but they started from a better position than us, especially with Quartararo who knows Yamaha very well and manages to push the bike to the limit. It suits his riding perfectly, he has a lot more knowledge of the bike and his performances are always better than ours. Maybe not always, but most of the time as a rider I would say that next year I will be much stronger on the bike. Honda.”

Marini had a very difficult season, being the 22nd and last starter in the championship, but he is coming out of it “satisfied” thanks to the progress made in the last part: “In tenths, I would say we improved by four or five tenths. That's a lot because before, we took 1.4 seconds per lap and now we take a second or sometimes less in the race. Obviously, that's not enough, but that's how it is. We’re aiming for another step of half a second for next year.”

“The road remains long”added Marini. “It may not be possible to reach the level of Ducati but the goal is to beat all the other brands, then we will start thinking about beating Ducati too.”

With Lena Buffa