You Can Now Look Like Quartararo’s Teammate With This New R1

When a manufacturer’s racing team is doing well, it’s only natural for the company to try and cash in on this by launching special edition road bikes to celebrate the on-track success. At the moment, Yamaha finds itself in the rather peculiar and embarrassing situation where its independent Petronas team is performing better than its own factory effort.

You can now partake in Fabio Quartararo’s success because Yamaha has launched a Petronas-liveried special edition of its flagship YZF-R1 superbike. This isn’t just a paintjob, oh no. The bike has been extensively worked on by Yamaha Motor Europe and the Yamaha Austria Racing Team which participates in the World Endurance Championship. It’s now clothed in full carbon-fibre bodywork and even includes aerodynamic appendages that are remarkably similar to those seen on the MotoGP machine.

Forget the R1M’s electronic suspension, this Petronas edition gets race-spec springers: an Ohlins FGR2 fork and TTX shock, along with a race-spec damper as well. Yamaha has given those pesky Stylemas a miss and gone straight for nickel-plated WSBK-spec GP4RX calipers biting on twin 330mm T-Drive discs. The wheels are a 7-spoke Marchesini affair wrapped in Michelin slicks, and for a little extra poke, Yamaha has thrown in a race exhaust system and race ECU.

Now for the interesting bits. Yamaha will only make 46 of these special motorcycles, and sell them for €46,000 each. It says that this is because it’s celebrating the 46th anniversary of Petronas’ existence, but we think it might have something to do with a certain high profile rider destined to join the team next year. Unfortunately, we don’t think any of the 46 units will be offered in India, so these pictures are as close as you’ll come to this turquoise beauty.