Want a no-compromise trackday (or race) bike, and you don’t care about street legality? Yamaha hears you, and offers up a litrebike with no public road homologation. Instead, the new Yamaha R1 GYTR gets a whole lot of the company’s race-only parts bolted on.
This idea isn’t new for Yamaha; some markets got a similar version of the R6 last year, when that machine was discontinued in most markets. The R1, far as we know, is not slated for the scrap heap anytime soon, but Yamaha apparently liked the R6 GYTR so much that we get the same idea applied to a litrebike.
So—what do you get?
Yamaha says the new machine is a track-only superbike developed by the company’s professional race techs, coming pre-equipped with “a smart package of necessary track parts and performance enhancing racing components, this track machine is ready to take you to the next level.” Said parts include:
- Electronics A stripped-down wiring harness without any wasted wiring for things like turn signals. Instead, you get a programmable ECU that lets you modify the bike’s engine braking, wheelie control, slide control and other electro-wizardry.
- Chassis Race-ready bars and rearsets, keyless fuel cap, paddock stand hooks, stainless steel GYTR brake lines and Brembo Z04 brake pads.
- Bodywork Fiberglass race fairing and seat cowling, aluminum fuel tank.
- Engine Yamaha’s 998cc crossplane engine with titanium Akrapovic exhaust.
Yamaha says a lot of other GYTR and GYTR Pro race parts are also available for bolt-on fun. In other words—the R1 GYTR is only supposed to be a starting point.
Will it come to Canada? It seems unlikely we’ll see this machine for 2023, but don’t be surprised if it shows up at some point, as our government moves towards eliminating gasoline engines from public roads. Might a race-only superbike be the best way to get your internal combustion fix, in about a decade and a half? Perhaps.
