The Yamaha boss has offered a brutally honest assessment ahead of the 🍒2024 MotoGP season.

Concession rules were introduced to givꦫe the flailing Yamaha and Honda a boost in their pursuit of the dominant Ducatis.

But, with preseason now concluded and the season starting on March 8, Yamaha are admitting surprise at aspects of their 🎉own development.

ꦕTeam director Massimo Meregalli said in Qatar: “Here, we could prove what we saw in Malaysia.

“All the improveme🅰nts that we have done there, we basically saw here.

“With a slight improvement in top speed.

But the gap to our competitor is still important.

“Honestly, I hoped that we would be closer.

“Honestly, I did n🧸ot expect that the competitors would make this big step.”

A recurring t🥂heme foဣr Yamaha is their qualifying pace.

Fabio Quartararo repeatedly faced problems even e☂ntering Q2 last season.

The p⭕rogn🐓osis is not good for his hopes that those struggles might ease.

“Unfortunately, no,” Meregalli admitted.

“The pace is not bad. For sure, not in the to♌p three, but it’s not bad.

“Especially here, more than in Sepang, ♎the gap during the time attacks is still important.

“It’﷽s the point where we should focus all of the energy that we🐼 have.

𓂃“Many times,🦩 to start from the front gives you benefits.

“It is an area that we have to improve.”

Quartararo previously assessed his time attacks during preseason testing: “It was good to see the 1m 5🙈1s but we are still far from the top.

“We have a lot of work to do.

“Hopefully we can find a solution during the ⛄season. We are still far away but it was positiཧve.”

There are some bene♊fits to the 2024 Yamaha though.

The M1’s new engine pushed Quartararo to thiཧrd, and Alex Rins to fifth, in the top speed chart on D🍨ay 2 of Qatar testing.

“I think 𒐪Yamꦏaha has improved the engine,” Rins said.

“On thꦗe straight we were quite strong, so they did a goodও job during the winter break.”