Yamaha: Giacomo Agostini and other racing legends in Misano

The Yamaha Racing Heritage Club (YRHC) was founded in 2021 to preserve and celebrate Yamaha’s racing heritage. It brings together owners of historic Yamaha racing motorbikes from all over the world and helps to preserve the bikes, the knowledge and the stories of past generations.

As part of the ‘Yamaha Racing Experience’, the YRHC will bring iconic motorbikes and riders onto the racetrack at a two-day event in Misano. Among those taking part on 18 and 19 June in Misano is 15-time world champion Giacomo Agostini. His move to Yamaha for the 1974 season was one of the stories that shocked racing fans at the time, as the Italian left MV Agusta to join the Japanese manufacturer.

Agostini won the 350cc World Championship with Yamaha in 1974, before making history once again the following season on the YZR500 0W23. In 1975, he secured Yamaha’s first riders’ title in the premier 500cc class, with the 0W23 also becoming the first two-stroke machine to win the 500cc World Championship.

The YZR500 0W23, which was recently restored by the Yamaha Racing Heritage Club with the support of the Pata Maxus Yamaha factory Superbike team, will be on display and can be heard in action at Misano.

Carlos Lavado brings another significant chapter of Yamaha’s championship history to Misano, as Yamaha celebrates the 40th anniversary of the second 250cc World Championship title that the Venezuelan rider secured with the manufacturer. As a two-time 250cc world champion with Yamaha, Lavado is still regarded as one of the brand’s most influential riders from that era, and the YZR250 0W82, on which he won the title in 1986, will also be on display at Misano as part of the YRHC exhibition.

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Yamaha’s Grand Prix history is also closely linked to Luca Cadalora. A three-time world champion, Cadalora rode Yamaha machines in both the 250cc and 500cc classes, securing Grand Prix victories for the manufacturer and finishing second in the 500cc World Championship in 1994. On display at Misano will be the YZR250 0WB9, on which he finished third in the 250cc World Championship in 1990. Cadalora will also take to the track on the YZR500 0WK1, a bike he rode during the 1998 season.

The Grand Prix exhibition in Misano also features two significant Yamaha 500cc machines from the Eddie Lawson era. The YZR500 0W81, on which Lawson won the 500cc World Championship title, and the 1987 YZR500 0W86, which epitomised Yamaha’s premier-class Grand Prix machines for the following season and on which he finished third in the championship standings.

The Grand Prix exhibition in Misano is rounded off by Norifumi ‘Norick’ Abe’s 2002 YZR500 0WL9. As one of Yamaha’s last 500cc two-stroke bikes before the complete switch to four-stroke MotoGP machines, the 0WL9 represents the final chapter of an era that shaped Grand Prix racing for decades.

Yamaha’s superbike heritage is represented by Noriyuki ‘Nitro Nori’ Haga’s YZF-R7 OW02, one of the most legendary production-based racing motorbikes in the manufacturer’s history, which will be in action during the two-day event. Its significance in Yamaha’s history has grown even further in the year of the brand’s 70th anniversary, as Yamaha’s 2025 anniversary livery is based on the 1999 YZF-R7 OW02, which Haga rode to fame in WorldSBK. Haga’s 1998 YZF-R750 0WJ6 and the 2008 YZF-R1 will also be on display.

Current Yamaha riders from the Superbike World Championship and the FIM Endurance World Championship will also be in attendance at Misano – Andrea Locatelli, Xavi Vierge, Remy Gardner, Stefano Manzi, Marvin Fritz, Karel Hanika and Leandro Mercado.