Yamaha’s factory team will feature the brand’s distinctive blue colourway for the 2014 FIM MXGP World Championship season.

Six years have passed since Yamaha’s factory motocross machinery led GPs in blue, as the 2014 campaign prepares to launch with the Grand Prix of Qatar next week, the works YZ450FM and YZ250FM motorcycles of Jeremy Van Horebeek and Christophe Charlier respectively are being shown for the first time.

Yamaha Factory Racing last adopted the company’s corporate livery for grand prix racing in 2007. In the first half of the decade the sight of Stefan Everts terrorising 500cc and MX1 divisions (a title winner every year from 2001 to 2006), also established the ‘Blue Blur’ of the works Yamaha squad.

The production YZ250F is a completely new bike, and now shares many similar characteristics and components with the latest version of its ‘bigger brother’. The same fuel injected engine concept is in place as well as the chassis design and layout.

The factory team helmed by Michele Rinaldi will again enter a prototype machine with the 2014 production YZ250F providing an excellent base.

In the MX2 class – where the search for maximum power and performance never seems to cease – works racer Christophe Charlier will benefit from the endeavours of YRRD technicians to boost output from the 250cc heart of the YZ250F.

2014 is a standout milestone in the story of the YZ and Yamaha’s pioneering four-stroke project that revolutionised the sport at the tail end of the last century.

Yamaha Factory Racing will form part of a comprehensive Yamaha line-up in GPs also with Bike it Yamaha Cosworth (Rui Gonçalves in MXGP and Max Anstie in MX2) and Kemea Yamaha (Petar Petrov and Luke Styke in MX2) for the 18 round series.