The Yamaha boss has offered a bru🥃tally honest asseꦕssment ahead of the 2024 MotoGP season.

Concession rules 𒁃were introduced to give the flailing Yamaha and Honda a boost in their pursui♓t of the dominant Ducatis.

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

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

“All the🅰 improvements 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 not expect that🗹 the competitoꦑrs would make this big step.”

A recurring theme for Yamaha is 🔥thei🅺r qualifying pace.

Fabio Quartararo repeatedly faced 💦pওroblems even entering Q2 last season.

�🍎�The prognosis 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 top three♛, but it’s not bad.

“Especially here, more than ⛄in Sepang, the gap during th🍨e time attacks is still important.

“It’s the point where we shou🙈ld focus all of th🦹e energy that we have.

“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 d🐭uring preseason testing: “It was good to see the 1m 51s🐽 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 st🧜ill far away but it was positive.”

There are some benefits to the 2024 Yam🌄aha though.

The M1’s new engine pushed Quartararo🐈 to third, 🥀and Alex Rins to fifth, in the top speed chart on Day 2 of Qatar testing.

“I think Yamaha has improved the engine,🔥” Rins said.

“On the straight we were quite st🅺rong, so they did a good 💟job during the winter break.”