Yamaha has a long racing heritage where it has had its machines and team winning many different competitions in many different areas, particularly in motorcycle racing(performance sport). Yamaha has had great success with riders such as Giacomo Agostini, Bob Hannah, Heikki Mikkola, Kenny Roberts, Eddie Lawson, Wayne Rainey, Jeremy McGrath, Stefan Merriman, Phil Read, Chad Reed, Valentino Rossi, James Stewart and currently Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies. They won the supercross championship two years in a row (2008 and 2009) with the YZ 450F (One with Chad Reed, and the other with James Stewart). Yamaha has won a total of 36 World Championships, including 3 in MotoGP and 9 in the preceding 500 cc two-stroke class, and 1 in World Superbike.
Yamaha created the innovations which lead to the modern motocross bike, as they were the first to build a production monoshock motocross bike (1975 for 250 and 400, 1976 for and one of the first to have a water-cooled motocross production bike (1977 in works bikes, 1981 in off-the-shelf bikes).
Since 1962, Yamaha produced production road racing grand prix motorcycles that any licensed road racer could purchase. In 1970, non-factory "privateer" teams dominated the 250cc World Championship with Great Britain’s Rodney Gould winning the title on a Yamaha TD2.
Yamaha also sponsors several professional ATV riders in several areas of racing, such as cross country racing and motocross. Yamaha has had good success in cross country with their YFZ450, being ridden by Bill Ballance, winning 9 straight titles since 2000. Yamaha's other major rider, Traci Cecco, has ridden the YFZ450 to 7 titles, with the first in 2000. In ATV motocross, Yamaha has had success with Dustin Nelson and Pat Brown, both who race the YFZ450. Pat Brown's best season was a 3rd place title in 2007, while Nelson has had two 1st place titles in the Yamaha/ITP Quadcross, one in 2006 and the other in 2008.
The company also produced Formula One engines from 1989 to 1997, initially for the Zakspeed team, in 1992 for the Jordan 192, and from 1993 onwards for Tyrrell. These never won a race, but drivers including Damon Hill, Ukyo Katayama, Mark Blundell and Andrea de Cesaris scored some acceptable results with them.
Yamaha has built engines for other manufacturers' vehicles beginning with the development and production of the Toyota 2000GT (1967) with the Toyota Motor Corporation. In 1984, executives of the Yamaha Motor Corporation signed a contract with the Ford Motor Company to develop, produce, and supply compact 60° 3.0 Liter DOHC V6 engines for transverse application for the 1989–'95 Ford Taurus SHO. From 1993 to 1995, the SHO engine was produced in 3.0 and 3.2 Liter versions. Yamaha jointly designed the 3.4 Liter DOHC V-8 engine with Ford for the 1996–'99 SHO. The Volvo XC90 uses a larger version of the same engine. Yamaha also co-developed the 1.7 sigma SE engine used in the Ford Puma. Yamaha also built Formula One racing engines from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s, with little on-track success. In 1991, Yamaha developed its F1 engined supercar called the OX99-11 where two drivers sit in tandem in front of the engine, but the project was cancelled due to the world recession and lack of interest.
Yamaha also tunes engines for other manufacturers, Toyota being one of them. Yamaha logos are, for instance, found on the Toyota S engines. as well as the 2ZZ-GE used by Toyota, Pontiac, and Lotus.
Yamaha developed a prototype for a two-seater sports car with help of Albrecht Goertz. While the Yamaha/Nissan partnership never progressed beyond the prototype stage, Toyota took up the design and released the Toyota 2000GT.
