Thౠe Ya🔜maha boss has offered a brutally honest assessment ahead of the 2024 MotoGP season.

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

But, with ൲preseason now concluded and th💦e season starting on March 8, Yamaha are admitting surprise at aspects of their own development.

Team director Massimo Meregalli said in Qa𒁃tar: “Here, we could prove what we saw in Malaysia♔.

“All the improvements that we h𓃲ave 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 the𝐆 competitors would make this big step.”

A recurring theme for Yamaha is thei💮r qualifying pace.

Fabio Quartararo rep📖eatedly faced problems even entering Q♈2 last season.

The prognos♈is 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 the time♍ attacks is st🔥ill important.

“It’s the point where we should focus al💛l of the 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 during preseason testing: “It was good to see the 1m 51s but we are still far from the topꩲ.

“We have a lot of work to do.

“Hopefully we can find a solution during the season. We ar🔥e still far away but it was positive.”

There are some benefits to🌺 the 2024 Yamaha though.

The M1ꦏ’s new engine pushed Quartararo to third, and Alex Rins to fifth, in the top speed chart on D🐭ay 2 of Qatar testing.

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

“On the straight we were quite strong, s🌺o they did a good job during the winter break.”