Yamaha’s MotoGP offensive
Can a new chassis and clever aerodynamics be enough to off-set the M1's power deficit?
The 2020 MotoGP season may have been delayed but when it kicks off in just nine days it will be judgement day for Yamaha. They’ll find out if they’ve finally been able to dig themselves out of the hole into which they fell back in 2016, when Michelin tyres and Magneti Marelli software arrived. Last year the factory appointed a new MotoGP project leader, worked hard on updates for the YZR-M1 and launched an aggressive hiring policy, recruiting Ducati electronics wizard Marco Frigerio, signing two-year factory contracts with Maverick Viñales and Fabio Quartararo and hiring Jorge Lorenzo as test rider. All of this adds up to an historic outcome: 2020 will be Valentino Rossi’s final campaign as a full-factory Yamaha rider.
This year’s chassis doesn’t look much different, but the frame has been tweaked to use the edge of the tyres less and cut tyre degradation, the M1’s biggest weak point since the advent of the Michelins. The factory have ditched the carbon swingarm they tried late last season, too. Yamaha’s other big focus is improving peak power, because last year’s M1 was dog slow. Good straight-line performance is important for two reasons: it’s the easiest way to overtake and it allows riders to stress the tyres less while compensating for a lack of top end. No one knows this better than Rossi, who as far back as 2007 asked for a V4 M1 to beat Ducati’s V4.
If the 2020 M1 can run a better race pace then Yamaha should be able to better their appalling win rate: just three victories over the past two seasons, compared to 11 victories in 2015 alone, the last year of Bridgestone tyres and tailormade factory electronics.