Yamaha's new V4 engine is still not fast enough — Augusto Fernandez

Yamaha test rider Augusto Fernandez has warned that the V4 engine, which the Japanese manufacturer has been developing for nearly a year, is still not fast enough.

His statement comes just a week after Alex Rins commented that the new engine is two seconds a lap slower than the current one. This comparison was made during the private test at Brno, held immediately after the Dutch Grand Prix.

Fernandez and Andrea Dovizioso are currently leading the development of the new engine. It has not yet been tested by the factory riders, but this is expected to change in September when Fabio Quartararo is scheduled to get his first laps on the new machine during the official Misano test.

. In the last test, we didn't use the full package; the engine doesn't have full power yet, everything is in an early stage. They're not giving us the most powerful engine from Japan. The engineers aren't giving it to us, but they want to understand how it works, and we have no problem with that. But at some point, we need to see its potential in terms of lap times. That will decide which engine we'll use next year.

It's not negative, but we just need to see better times. The engineers want to understand how the engine works without breaking it. Little by little, we are increasing the power. That's how they work in Japan. They want to understand things very well. I don't mind that, as long as we have a strong engine next year, things are going well so far."