Yamaha Motor Co. and the general promoter of the MotoGP World Championship, Dorna Sports renewed the agreement that the Japanese motorcycle manufacturer will remain the official supplier of light vehicles for the Moto Grand Prix paddock: the gas-powered scooter remains the main vehicle in the paddock and on service lanes, despite a number of experiments with electric scooters. and scooters.
The collaboration between Yamaha and MotoGP in providing mobility management for the championship began in 2005. Then, for Dorna, the Japanese factory supplied 25 light scooters in an exclusive color. The contract has already been renewed three times. In 2014, as part of the championship greening program, Yamaha began supplying the new EC-03 electric scooters to replace traditional combustion scooters. For several years, Dorna managers and employees rode these, but then returned to the traditional ones, with internal combustion engines!
Yamaha Nmax 125 is the official scooter of the MotoGP World Championship. Since 2021, a new contract has entered into force, according to which Yamaha will renew the MotoGP fleet with 25 NMax 125 scooters.
The advantage of a scooter with a gasoline engine is too obvious: you do not need to charge it every evening and monitor the charge level, so as not to accidentally end up “without wheels” at an unfortunate moment somewhere in the farthest corner of the circuit.
Petrol scooters with 125cc engine provide easy running and extreme efficiency, moreover, the engine power is enough to move along the service tracks of the autodrome with any height difference. This is extremely important, for example, for the quick movement of official photographers and Dorna media center staff during the weekends. Autodromo Internacionale do Algarve is just like that: there are very steep elevation changes, and the length of service tracks is 600 meters longer than the ring itself.