B y M AT O XLEY
P HOTOS BY G OLD £, G OOS E
at
(Above) John Kocinski at speed on Yamaha's VZR-M1 - the f uture of Grand Prix road racing for the company - at the Mugello
circuit In Italy.
(Below) The M1 uses an in-li ne four-cylinder engine that is currenUy well under th e 990cc limit, according to Yamaha, and
produces a claimed 200 horsepower at 15,0 0 0 rpm.
(Be low ri ght) Marlboro
Yamaha's Max Blaggl
also took part In the
test, giving Yamaha a
good comparison to Its
current VZR500 Grand
Prix two-stroke.
22
MAY 23 , 200 1 •
e
ye
I
e
a m a ha 's YZR-Ml broke cover in
Europe last week - the first of the
new generation fo ur-stroke GP bikes
to run on the European continent.
Yamaha engineers and riders Max
Biaggi, John Kocinski, Norih iko Fuj iwa ra a nd Kyo j i Namba spent th ree
days at th e Italian circuit of Mugello ,
running s ide -by-s ide tests with the
factory 's c u rre n t Mar lboro Yamaha
YZR500 Grand Prix bikes. The outing
followed pr evious sess ions a t the
Yamaha test tr ack Fukuroi , Se pa ng
and Phillip Is la nd , and was the first
stage of a Eu rop ean to ur for the bike
tha t wil l race in anger for t he first
time when it com petes for the 2002
MotoGP Wor ld Championship.
The YZR-M 1 opens an excit ing
new chapter in Yamaha's Grand Prix
he r itage , following almost fo u r
decades of Wor ld Championsh ip
competition , du ring which time th e
factory has conquered all th ree classes , most recently with victor y in last
yea r's 250 and 500cc m an ufa cture rs'
cha m pio ns hips.
The shift to four-stroke power for GP
raci ng 's premier class brings the s po rtmo re in line with the four-stroke dom inated streetbike market, encouraging a
g reater degree of technological feed back from the track to the street.
Yama ha currently enjoys massive
s uccess in the streetb ike sector, with
its epoch -m ak ing range of ' no- co m promise' s po rtbikes - th e R1, R6 a nd
R7. But the YZR-M1 - the M1 code
fo llo wing Yamaha 's tr aditional YZR
race prototyp e prefix stands for Miss ion One - has no direct relationship
to these machi nes . It is the e mbodiment o f a fr eeth inking pol ic y at
Yamaha , a thought p rocess aimed at
p roducing a totally balanced race
bike - a motorcycle designed around
the rider that acknowledges user friendliness as the surest way to ra ce winning performance.
Y
n
eVIl'S
