In the past year, Yamaha has overhauled the majority of its lineup, and next in line seems to be the company’s flagship sportbike, the YZF-R1. This is because Team Blue has registered a new motorcycle codenamed YZF1000W with a “New for 2023” tag beside it, as revealed by FIM documents gathered by Motorcycle.com.

New Yamaha YZF-R1 Coming Soon

Let’s start by decoding the name. The YZF1000 is Yamaha's in-house name for the YZF-R1 whereas the W suffix is the company’s terminology for track-only models (the name for the R6 Race is YZF600W), meaning the YZF1000W is a new-for-2023 race-only R1.

While the documents don’t reveal much about the new bike, it confirms that the bike features the same 998cc, four-cylinder engine as before. Do expect Yamaha to eke out extra ponies from it, enabling it to join the now-common 200HP+ club. These FIM documents also fall right in line with Yamaha’s recent patent application for a MotoGP-derived seamless gearbox which could very well be part of the new R1. }

But what does it mean for consumers like you and us? Well, once Yamaha perfects the race-only R1, it’s fair to expect the updates to trickle down to the road-legal R1. To jog your memory, the current generation R1 is turning seven this year with its introduction dating back to 2015.

Since then, the R1 has seen a few updates, but none of them were game-changing or revolutionary, which has made it an average joe in its segment. In comparison, the Ducati Panigale V4, which came out in 2017, has already received a slew of updates and continues to get better each year.}

Finally, if Yamaha goes ahead to introduce a new R1, we expect it to come out by the end of this year, probably around EICMA, closely followed by its launch in the USA.