‘It shrieked out over 70bhp, via an eight-speed box’
of its 40 horses were hidden. The 250 shrieked out more than 70 horsepower, through an eightspeed box.
Both were tricky in the extreme to ride, with tiny powerbands and iffy carburation. If the engines ran too rich they oiled plugs and the bike stopped. If they ran too lean they seized a piston and ejected the rider over the handlebars.
Bill Ivy – bike racing’s first rock star – beat the five-cylinder Honda to win the 1967 125 title but it wasn’t until 1968, after Honda had withdrawn from GP racing, that the 250 won the championship.
Years of dominance
At the end of that season Yamaha also quit factory involvement in GPs, but in many ways this was the start of the company’s greatest years in racing. In 1973 Yamaha started selling the water-cooled TZ250 and TZ350, which went on to dominate grids, from grands prix to national events and club meetings, for a decade and more.
In 1973 all but five of the 58 points scorers in the 250cc world championship rode TZ250s. Ten years later the bikes still accounted for more than half the 250 GP grid. Yamaha sold many thousands of these machines, which were the blueprint of the legendary RD250LC and RD350LC road bikes.
Of course, things were different in the headline-grabbing 500 class, where factory involvement was vital. In 1973 Yamaha unleashed the first prototype four-cylinder twostroke 500, the 100bhp 0W19. Two years later Agostini rode the 0W26 to Yamaha’s first premier-class crown, the first by a two-stroke.
King Kennny & Co.
Yamaha was now the greatest twostroke manufacturer of them all and would remain so into the 1990s. Indeed, this was Yamaha’s golden age as a premier-class GP force. Between 1975 and 1993 they won 17 500cc riders’ and constructors’ world titles, while Honda and Suzuki combined won 20.
Best of all, ‘King’ Kenny Roberts won the 1978, 1979 and 1980 titles on water-cooled descendants of Yamaha’s first inline-four 500, but his winning streak ended when they started experimenting with square-four and V4 engines. Only when the reed-valve 0W76 arrived in 1984 did they start winning again, this time with Lawson. Yamaha won their last 500cc championship in 1992, when Rainey wrapped up a remarkable title hat-trick. The factory didn’t get the chance to follow that up after Rainey’s career-ending accident because the world was changing. Increasingly tight emissions regs effectively banned two-strokes from the road and it was inevitable GP racing would go the same way.
The dawn of MotoGP
In 2002 MotoGP introduced 990cc four-strokes to take the place of 500cc two-strokes. That year the both generations of premier-class bikes raced together. Of course the four-strokes had been given an extra 490cc to ensure their success, so the result was emphatic. The four-strokes won all 16 races.
By the first race of 2003 the 500s had disappeared and for a while it seemed like Yamaha might follow them because the factory’s first four-stroke GP bike – the YZR-M1 – was a complete disaster. Engineers had badly under-estimated what they needed to win a four-stroke MotoGP race. The inline-four M1 was quicker than a YZR500 but was a limping old dog compared to Honda’s five-cylinder RC211V. During the first two seasons, the M1 won two races to the RC211V’s 29. Yamaha were making all the wrong kinds of headlines and there were rumours the company would quit to prevent further embarrassment. Two men saved the day: newly appointed race chief Masao Furusawa and the rider he signed for the 2004 season.
Enter Valentino
Even Valentino Rossi admitted his move was crazy. During 2003 the M1 scored just one podium finish from a possible 48, so no rider in their right mind would sign for them. But Rossi was up for the challenge and had a point to prove. His arrival at Yamaha sprinkled fairy dust on the M1. Within the first few days of testing Rossi and his crew Jeremy Burgess turned the bike into a winner. Their pragmatic approach didn’t only transform the bike, it transformed the way Yamaha went racing, adding pragmatism to science.
In April 2004 Rossi became the first rider in history to win backto-back premier-class races on different makes of motorcycle. At the end of the season he secured the championship and successfully defended the crown the following year. Almost out of nowhere Yamaha had become a dominant force in MotoGP.
Two more titles followed in 2008 and 2009, during which Yamaha swept aside huge efforts from Ducati and Honda. There was no doubt at this time that the M1 was the best bike on the grid – fast, rider-friendly and with the best electronics, by now a huge area of MotoGP R&D.
New blood
However, Yamaha thought Rossi was coming to the end of his career, so they signed 250cc world champion Jorge Lorenzo for 2010. Rossi didn’t like his number-one status coming under threat, so he defected to Ducati.
This made no difference to Yamaha’s position, for a while at least. Lorenzo won the 2010, 2012 and 2015 MotoGP titles on the M1 and might have won more but for a major shake-up of technical regulations. Since 2016, when MotoGP switched to Michelin tyres and Magneti Marelli spec software, Yamaha haven’t won any riders or constructors titles, because they’ve been unable to adapt the M1 to the latest kit although they have made a breakthrough in 2021 with Fabio Quartararo first in the title fight with three race wins to date.