I make it no secret that the Yamaha YZ450F is a personal favourite bike of mine. I began racing Yamahas at around twelve years old and raced them right through to my senior years in ProMX and Supercross. I did do the odd year or two with Suzuki, Honda, Kawasaki and even KTM, but predominantly all my best years of racing were done on a Yamaha YZ450F. My last pro-level race on a Yamaha was before the current reverse engine generation, and while those early models had some teething issues, Yamaha have ironed them out and continued to refine the YZ450F every few years to develop it into the class-dominating machine that it is today. Honestly, you would have to be living under a rock to not know firsthand or at least have heard how good the Yamaha YZ450F is.

The YZ450F is one of those bikes that has to be ridden to be completely understood. The stability of this motorcycle in a straight line should not be paired with a motorcycle that corners well. Usually, those two things counter each other out, but somehow Yamaha has managed to make a big, fire-breathing 450 machine stable, turn well, and easy to ride while still packing a tonne of power.

After the 2026 YZ450F launch, I was thrilled to hear I was going to be hanging onto the YZ as a long-term test bike. The guys at Yamaha Australia are easy to deal with and give us free rein testing and racing their motorcycles so we can give you guys a real-world review. So this is exactly what I will be doing with the YZ. I’m going to do plenty of riding and get into some local races to see how the YZ goes in the real world.

So far, the hydraulic clutch would have to be my most favourite addition to the 2026 model. The new seat cover works well, and the smooth, manageable power makes riding the YZ easy, but pair that with the KYB suspension and this is going to be a hard bike to make many—if any—improvements to. The first thing I will do, though, is get rid of the hard stock grips and fit a nice set of lock-on grips that will be much more comfortable. <i>Mat boyd<i>

Hours: 2

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Grips