CHAT: 2026 YZ450F WITH AARON TANTI

Aaron Tanti has long been one of Australia’s most formidable 450 riders, and his return to the Monster Energy CDR Yamaha program marked a renewed push for dominance in both motocross and supercross. More recently, Tanti’s inked a two-year extension with CDR, keeping him aboard the YZ450F through to 2027 and paired once again with teammate Jed Beaton. 

At the launch of the Yamaha’s overhauled 2026 YZ450F, Transmoto’s John Prutti caught up with Tanti at the Appin track to get his first impressions on how the stock model stacks up. Catch the full conversation as he talks through what’s different, what’s unchanged, and how confident he feels stepping into the then-upcoming Supercross season.

Prutti: Right, Aaron Tanti, we’re out here at Appin at the 2026 Yammy 450 launch. Talk us through man, you’ve obviously been on the factory bikes, but how does this thing compare in the stock sort of form?

Tanti: It’s always awesome to come to these new launches that have improvements, because this is like kind of what we build off when we build our race bikes. Yamaha is so awesome because their package is like, you know, it’s SO good straight out of the box. Yeah, we make our improvements with our suspension, tune the engine to what-not, and just personal preference things, but it’s awesome to come out here and see and ride the bike straight of out of the box, with standard suspension and standard everything.

And, you know, we’re at a track that has a bit of everything. It has some ruts, it’s got some big jumps and a few little bumps. Honestly, I’m really impressed – I’m having a good day. I did a ton of laps and really felt it out. Just really having fun.

Prutti: Yeah, and it seems like from the presentation last night, compliancy was a massive thing with you guys and your factory bikes or your race bikes. Is compliancy something that you’re looking for? So it’s a consistent bike?

Tanti: Yeah, definitely. Like obviously, you know, the package itself, we build on top of that. So the package needs to be good to start with. That’s coming from like, the upgrades they did to the clutch. They obviously improved on the issues that they had before to make it more cooler. Now, they’ve got their standard hydraulic clutch with a bit of a bigger reservoir.

Prutti: Why is the reservoir so big? Is that just to keep more oil in there?

Tanti: I’m assuming it’s to keep more oil because they have, I believe, a stiffer plate and stuff like the spring plate, or whatever is in there, is a lot stiffer. But, the clutch itself is still a really nice feeling clutch. If that was a cable clutch, it’d probably be really stiff.

Prutti: Are we a fan of the hydraulic setup?

Tanti: Yeah, so I was running the add-on on the ’25 model, which Jed’s bike here has. So just to me, they almost feel the same, just a little different engagement points. I’ve been riding the ’26 for a week or two on Supercross. So yeah, I really enjoy those things, and all these new features that they’ve got for the general consumer. Like the ease of access to change your mapping, and even lock it, which I was pretty impressed by. Just don’t forget your password, apparently haha. Just like your iPhone.

Prutti: I was even saying to a couple of the boys, I’m like, you almost need a sign on it to say “this bike’s locked”. You know, like, don’t even bother trying to. Don’t do it. Don’t take it haha.

Prutti: When will you be sort of getting on this bike as far as racing goes?

Tanti: We’ll be racing these in this year’s Australian Supercross series. The boys came up last week and I’ve tested, and built out a little package for Supercross. I’ve started ripping some laps on that and I’m keen to go home and start training some more.

Prutti: Get back in early, yeah. Sick, so you’re happy? From what I understand, it’s just refinement, so it’s not that different. You’re not too worried about getting on it with, you know, somewhat of short — I shouldn’t say short notice — but Supercross is approaching soon.

Aaron Tanti: No, not at all. The team sits down, they go over the parts list because, obviously, when we go racing, we need spare parts. And none of that was a major change. I think they [only] got a different clutch lever. And all the changes were positive. With the chassis changes, it’s meant to give you a better feel on the front end, which is mega in Supercross because we run such stiff suspension.

And yeah, just having the improved clutch. You know, we do mesh grid starts out of Supercross, so they need the bite to be really good. And of course, we’re hitting whoops in Supercross [lots of clutch work].

Prutti: Absolutely. Thank you very much for that. Good luck with the upcoming Supy season!