Yamaha targeting top-five results from mid-2025, says new MotoGP boss

New Yamaha MotoGP chief Paolo Pavesio says his team wants to regularly challenge for top five positions from the middle of the 2025 season.

The Italian executive took over Yamaha Factory Racing at the start of the year, and under his leadership the squad put together a solid performance in pre-season testing at Sepang, with star rider Fabio Quartararo finishing third after finding eight tenths over his qualifying lap at the Malaysian Grand Prix just four months ago.

While there is a sense of encouragement over at Yamaha, Pavesio is cautious in his reading of the situation and doesn’t want to set unrealistic targets for the team.

His comments come ahead of this week’s second pre-season test at Buriram, a track that offers much less grip than Sepang and is hence considered a more reliable indicator of performance than the Malaysian venue.

“We have the objective of reducing the gap that separates us from those at the top,” he said. “We are reducing it, and that can be seen on the stopwatch. But the others are not standing still. 

“The key will be to know to what extent we will be able to be better than them, to reduce that gap as quickly as possible.

“Will we win the title in 2025? Surely not. It would be stupid to say that, because if you set an unattainable goal, you then generate frustration.

Paolo Pavesio, Managing Director of Yamaha Motor Racing

Photo by: Yamaha

“If we start from where we left off in 2024 and take a bigger step than the rest, we can regularly place ourselves in the top five. That is what we want, to establish ourselves in the top five from mid-year onwards. The first thing we have to do is beat Aprilia and KTM. 

“[MotoGP project leader] Takahiro Sumihe is the great driving force behind this change in dynamics and mentality. Also, [Pramac] have made it very easy for me.”

During last year’s United States GP in April, Lin Jarvis revealed in an interview with Motorsport.com that he would be stepping down from his position as director of Yamaha’s racing division after 2024, bringing a 26-year stint in that role to an end.

Pavesio, a veteran of Yamaha Europe, was chosen as his replacement, with his appointment officially announced a few months later.

When Pavesio received the offer from Toyoshi Nishida, Yamaha's executive director in racing, he was already aware of the company’s plans to ramp up its efforts in MotoGP and win the title for the first time since Fabio Quartararo’s success in 2021.

In July he left his previous duties and focused on beginning a relationship with new satellite team Pramac, and both sides seemed quite happy with the start of their partnership in the Sepang test.

 "When I accepted this position I already knew that Yamaha wanted to put one more gear in MotoGP,” Pavesio explained. “What attracted me most was the desire to unite people with diverse cultures.

“Nishida offered me the position and I told him that I was not an engineer. And he replied that we already had enough engineers, and that they are very good. I do not intend to be better than anyone in their specific role, but to try to make all the pieces fit together.”