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Two weeks ago in Australia , a new chapter in Yamaha Racing's history began with the debut of the all-new R9 in World Supersport. A debut that certainly did not disappoint expectations, as the Japanese bike managed to triumph already in the season's opening race. Coming close to an encore in Race 2.
This surprising debut represents just one piece of the R9's path. A road that Yamaha began to chart last year, as the men from the Iwata-based manufacturer themselves recounted, retracing the path that led the R9 to line up at the start of the Round at Phillip Island.
Introducing a brand new bike into a World Championship is never easy, it is even less so when you are going to replace an iconic bike like the R6. That's why the development team at Yamaha Motor Europe's Motorsport R&D department has been secretly working on the R9 since early 2024, in close collaboration with Japanese engineers.
"We started the R9 project in mid-2024, when we received a pre-production model. We did the first test on the track with Manzi, and the next step was to understand exactly how the bike was developed. There is a very close collaboration with Yamaha Motor Company and Japan, and it was very important for us to have this connection between Yamaha Motor Europe Italy and the company in Japan," said Riccardo Tisci, Yamaha Road Racing Developing Manager.
The expectations behind this project can only be high. As Niccolò Canepa, Yamaha Road Racing Sporting Manager, also admitted, "The R9 is a very important bike for us and the goal, of course, is very ambitious, because we want to win the World Championship and as many races as possible."
To accomplish this, Yamaha has put together its strongest ever lineup of riders and teams in World Supersport. Pata Yamaha Ten Kate, Yamaha BLU CRU Evan Bros Racing and GMT94: three teams all former world champions, fielding a six-rider lineup made up of a mix of youth and experience. Bringing the R9 to the track in 2025 are Stefano Manzi, a two-time World Championship runner-up in the category; two-time World Champion Lucas Mahias; and another experienced rider Michael Ruben Rinaldi, who has seven seasons in Superbike behind him. Accompanied by Can Oncu; reigning Supersport 300 champion Aldi Satya Mahendra; and Yuki Okamoto.
The teams first had a chance to test the new bikes configured for World SSP at a shakedown test in Cremona last November, before beginning with their own preseason testing programs. Bad weather in Europe limited these tests, so the R9 showed up in Australia for the first race of the season as an unknown quantity.
The official pre-season test at the Phillip Island circuit showed that the bike had potential. An expectation that was confirmed by the front row gained in qualifying by GMT94 rider, Lucas Mahias. Triumphing at the end of an exciting first race, however, was Pata Yamaha Ten Kate's Stefano Manzi. The very rider who 126 days earlier had crossed the finish line first in Jerez in the last R6 race.
"My favorite aspect of the Yamaha R9 is the stability. After the first few laps, I felt like I had been riding this bike for a decade already," Manzi recounted, without hiding the goal with which he is tackling this season: "I want to be World Champion, that's the goal and it has been the goal in the past two years as well, in which I finished second, however. I was the last to win with the R6 and it is great to be the first to do it with the R9 as well."
The victory achieved by Stefano is a confirmation of the excellent work done by Yamaha in the development of its new Supersport bike. "The engineers did an incredible job both in Japan and in Europe, so we knew we were competitive. But it's great to see that we are already winning," Canepa pointed out. "We definitely have room for improvement and we will keep working, because we know that this bike has even more potential. We are ready to achieve even more."
