It's the kind of confidence that shows how complicated it is, in MotoGP, to solve the problems of a motorcycle. At Yamaha, it's nothing to say that we fumbled for a long time before finding the direction of travel with an M1 which found itself overtaken by its competitors. A change of management, a reorganization which brought a new lease of life based above all on pragmatism. The proof with this admission from Takahiro Sumi, head of the Yamaha MotoGP project since 2019…
The suffering that Yamaha M1 imposed on its pilots have been repeatedly put on the table. An engine exceeded at top speed, premature wear of the rear tire, and electronics still to be optimized. But for some time now, things have been better. The youth of fabio quartararo allowed a new perspective and Iwata engineers began to better understand their subject. During this time, Maverick Vinales got back into shape. Even if Valentino Rossi continued to suffer, smiles returned to the tuning fork brand.
However, we had to keep a cool head, because if we are to believe the Japanese, it was not easy to synthesize the information reported by the factory drivers. Thus, he comments in comments reported by Tutomotoriweb : " Valentino complained of acceleration problems, Maverick of braking problems " remember Sumi. " But when we improved Maverick's setup at the entrance to the curves and tried it with Valentino, it worked for him too. The pilots' instructions seemed different, but the solution worked equally well for both. This meant that the direction to follow was very similar. As a result, the bikes of both riders were almost identical, there were not many differences »
In 2020, Yamaha did well in building up its rider fleet: Maverick Vinales, Valentino Rossi, fabio quartararo in point and Jorge Lorenzo in support for the tests. We almost forget Franco Morbidelli...
