Yamaha Motor

The company's first product, the YA-1 125cc motorcycle, won the 3rd Mount Fuji Ascent Race in its class and swept the podium in the All Japan Autobike Endurance Road Race in 1955. Yamaha began competing internationally in 1956 when it entered the Catalina Grand Prix with the YA-1, placing sixth. By 1963, Yamaha's dedication to the two-stroke engine and racing paid off with its first international racing victory at the Belgian GP, winning the 250cc class.

Since 1962, Yamaha made production road racing Grand Prix motorcycles that any licensed road racer could purchase. In 1970, non-factory privateer teams dominated the 250cc World Championship with Rodney Gould winning the title on a Yamaha TD2.

In motorcycle racing Yamaha has won 39 world championships, including seven in MotoGP and 10 in the preceding 500cc two-stroke class, and two in World Superbike. Yamaha has also recorded 210 victories at the Isle of Man TT and leads the list of victories at the Sidecar TT with 40. Past Yamaha riders include Jarno Saarinen, Giacomo Agostini, Bob Hannah, Heikki Mikkola, Kenny Roberts, Eddie Lawson, Wayne Rainey, Jeremy McGrath, Phil Read, Chad Reed, Ben Spies, Jorge Lorenzo, and nine-time world champion Valentino Rossi.

The first Yamaha rider to win a World Superbike championship was Ben Spies in 2009. In 2021, Toprak Razgatlıoğlu became world champion in the same series. Yamaha's Superbike World Championship team since 2016 has been delivered by Crescent Racing.

The decade of the 1970s was capped by the XT500 winning the first Paris–Dakar Rally in 1979. Yamaha introduced the first single-shock rear suspension, the trademarked "Monoshock," in 1973, appearing in production on the 1974 Yamaha YZ-250. Yamaha's first Motocross competition four-stroke, the YZ400F, won the 1998 USA outdoor national Championship with factory rider Doug Henry. The Yamaha YZ450F won the AMA Supercross Championship in 2008 with Chad Reed and in 2009 with James Stewart.

Yamaha produced Formula One engines from 1989 to 1997 (with a one-year break in 1990), initially for the Zakspeed team, in 1991 for the Brabham BT60Y, in 1992 for the Jordan 192, from 1993 to 1996 for Tyrrell, and in 1997 for the Arrows A18. The Yamaha engines never won a race. Drivers including Damon Hill, Ukyo Katayama, Mark Blundell, and Mika Salo scored some acceptable results, with Blundell achieving a 3rd place at the 1994 Spanish Grand Prix and Hill finishing 2nd at the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix. This was partly attributed to Yamaha collaborating with the John Judd Engine Organization. However, questions were raised as to whether the Yamaha engines used from 1993 to 1997 were just Judd engines with Yamaha branding. The Yamaha engines never secured a fastest lap or pole position. 1994 was considered Yamaha's most successful Formula One year in terms of points accrued. After the 1997 season, Yamaha withdrew from Formula One, partly following a disagreement with Arrows regarding control of engine development for 1998.

In March 2024, it was announced that Lola Cars would enter Formula E in the 2024–25 season as a powertrain supplier in a technical partnership with Yamaha. A month later, Lola–Yamaha secured Abt Formula E Team as its first powertrain customer, with the team entering as Lola Yamaha Abt Formula E Team.

Yamaha attempted to produce a supercar in the 1990s named the Yamaha OX99-11, using a Yamaha Formula One engine as its powerplant. Design was undertaken by Takuya Yura, with IAD engaged to continue development after an initial German design was deemed too similar to existing sports cars. IAD delivered an initial version by early 1992. A tandem two-seater arrangement was adopted. However, disagreements over budget led Yamaha to transfer the project to its own Ypsilon Technology division, which was given six months to complete it. Japan's economic downturn at the time led Yamaha to cancel the project in 1994 after many delays, with only three prototypes in existence.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.