Yamaha believes Ai Ogura has the potential to become one of the best Japanese riders in MotoGP history and help reignite passion for motorcycling in his home country.
Trackhouse rider Ogura has been one of the star performers of the 2026 MotoGP season, with his first-place finish in the Dutch Grand Prix making him the first Japanese rider to win a premier-class race in over two decades.
The 2027 campaign will see Ogura join Yamaha’s factory team, creating the prospect of a Japanese rider racing a Japanese bike in the Japanese Grand Prix next year.
Yamaha MotoGP chief Paolo Pavesio believes the impact of Ogura could extend well beyond motorsport, saying his increasing popularity could revive Japan’s “lost” culture for motorcycling.
While MotoGP and the World Superbike Championship remain popular in the Asian nation, partly due to the involvement of manufacturing giants like Yamaha and Honda, sales of road-going bikes have plummeted over the last four decades.
“Japan is a country where motorcycles were hugely important but are no longer as strong a factor as they once were,” Pavesio told Motorsport.com Italy in an exclusive interview.
“I think Ai could do something good for the passion for motorcycling in Japan, for Japan. Promote motorsport there. A country that has slowly lost its passion.
“It is one of those things that happens step by step, and one day you wake up and realise it has happened.
“I went to Japan for the first time 25 years ago. Tokyo was a theme park for motorcycle enthusiasts. It was full of bikes, huge scooters ‘tuned up’ with LEDs and Yoshimura exhausts.
Ai Ogura, Trackhouse Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / Getty Images
“There are no motorcycles in Tokyo anymore. Why? They started banning motorcycles from being parked on pavements, then there was the noise, then, at some point, you simply stopped seeing motorcycles.
“If young people are not passionate about motorcycles, even those studying engineering will not be. So they want to do a thousand other things, but not that.
“So a culture that was once so strong tends to fade, and then you go to Suzuka and there are barely 60,000 people, rather than 150,000.
“Let’s see what can be done with a Japanese rider, also because my colleagues tell me that he is rekindling some of that passion and attracting the attention of the mainstream media.
“And this remains the country that is home to two of the biggest motorcycle manufacturers – Yamaha and Honda [as well as Suzuki and Kawasaki].
“Japan still produces 50% of the motorcycles sold around the world. It is a shame, and something needs to be done. In Japan, the responsibility lies above all with the Japanese manufacturers.”
Ogura rose through the ranks with backing from Honda, winning the Moto2 title on his fourth attempt in 2024.
After making his MotoGP debut last year with Aprilia’s satellite team Trackhouse, he made a major leap in 2026, even mounting a title bid before injury forced him out of races in Aragon and Misano.
His early-season form prompted Yamaha to poach him for 2027 as part of an all-new line-up that will also include 2024 champion Jorge Martin.
Pavesio said Ogura is destined for great things in MotoGP, citing the results the 25-year-old has achieved so early in his career.
Asked whether nationality played a role in Yamaha signing Ogura, he responded: “When you reach this level, the flag does not matter to me. Then, if everything is equal and all other things are equal, obviously if the rider comes from a country that is commercially important to you, which is not the case here, then you take that into consideration.
“But a Japanese rider this strong… perhaps in MotoGP we could eventually say, if Ai continues to grow, that there has never been anyone like him. Because this is only his second year.
“He could become one of the two or three strongest Japanese riders in history. That certainly brings some pressure, but so be it.”
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