te r its vintage 2000 ra ce se as on ,
when Yamaha won five out of t he
eight available World Championships
in the four road racing categories it
o ntested, it's been a steep dow nhill
slide for t he firm wit h t he tu ning fo rks on its
badge . Wo rse th an that, it's now bee n I I long
years since Yamaha last tasted champio nship success at road racing's pinnacle, whether MotoGP or
SOOcc, which it once dominated. But, just as rival
Honda fought back from being sidelined in 2000
by Yamaha and Suzuki in the World Cham pionship,
so Yamaha is plotting a comeback in MotoGp,w ith
a new weapo n called Valentino Rossi. Funny - wasn't he the guy fronting Honda 's title-winning resur gence over the past three years?
The chance to find out first-hand exactly what
Rossi will be up against in seeking to flick the finger
at HRC' s honc hos by turning the lackluste r Yamaha
YZF-MI into a championsh ip-winning package
A
30
JAN UAR 21, 2004 •
Y
CYCLE NEWS
came in a 20-minute test session aboard his future
teammate Carlos Checa's Fo rtuna-backed bike
."
at Valencia the day after the final GP of the
2003 season - two days before I te sted the ; ]
championship-winning Ho nda RC2 1IV that
"
!'
Rossi abandoned but o n t he same day that I
was able to sample Troy Bayliss' Ducati
Desmosedici. By the end of the week I
had a pretty good perspective of
where they all stand.
Hopping aboard the YZFMI in Pit Lane at Valencia, the
bike immediately fee ls much
sma ller to sit on than either of
the ot her bikes - more like a
600 Supe rsport, co mpared to
the more voluptuo usly st reamlined Ducati, where you feel
you're sitt ing in the bike rathe r
tha n perched on to p of it.
~
40th Anniversary
