VOLUME 57 ISSUE 37 SEPTEMBER 15, 2020 P137
who has shown there is a lot to
learn. It's been left to satellite
rider Nakagami, quite impres-
sively carrying the can on last
year's bike.
At least the rules mean HRC
can address the issue with chas-
sis changes. For Yamaha, the
problems relate to the engine.
And are therefore unfixable this
season.
After some bad years, the
M1's problems have come to a
head in 2020 and were acute
right at the delayed start of the
year. They blamed blazing heat
at Jerez for three engine fail-
ures—Rossi's and Morbidelli's in
races; Vinales's (luckily enough)
in practice.
Now with the abbreviated
season not halfway done, only
Quartararo has not yet lost one
of his five sealed engines (allow-
ance cut from seven). He and
Rossi each have one unused
engine; Vinales and Morbidelli,
however, have already taken all
five out of the back of the truck.
Need another, and that's a pit-
lane start.
What's going wrong? Yamaha
admits to a valve problem, and
formally requested official per-
mission to open their engines
to replace the valves "on safety
grounds."
Procedure means the request
was automatically referred to the
MSMA manufacturers' associa-
tion. Scenting a rare chance to
spy on Yamaha's secret inter-
nals, their rivals requested more
detailed information.
This was enough for Yamaha
to withdraw the request, and in
the words of boss-man Lin Jar-
vis, decide "to adjust some other
parameters" to help them get
through the year. In other words:
"cut the revs."
This is bad news for the rid-
ers. The Yamaha is known to be
a sweet handler but not particu-
larly powerful up against the rival
V4s. Austria's top-speed figures
clearly prove the point.
Top of the list, as usual, was
Ducati, with Dovi's bike clocking
199.1 mph, some two mph up on
last year. Bradl, on Marquez's
Honda, ran 197.4; then Smith's
Aprilia and Binder's KTM almost
the same. The four Yamahas
were clustered right at the bot-
tom of the chart, Rossi's the
best, almost seven mph down.
Which is a lot to overcome on a
track with fast straights.
The upcoming races are at Mi-
sano, where slow corners might
offer a chance to regain some
pride, though even this is not
necessarily a given. The toler-
ances are so close and the mar-
gins so small that Yamaha riders
even managed to find some
disadvantages in the twistier part
of the Austrian circuit.
Rossi has for ages been ask-
ing Yamaha for a V4, to match
those used by almost all the
others. There are several clear
reasons that this might be a
more effective option, including
narrower width allowing a lower
engine position, and a combina-
tion of less internal friction and
a shorter and stiffer crankshaft
offering more power. But the V4
also has disadvantages, being
longer fore-and-aft, with more
awkwardly placed intake stacks,
and difficulties with both length
and location of the rear-cylinder
exhausts.
Just to prove that the issue is
not cut and dried, Suzuki use
a Yamaha-like inline four, and
clearly don't suffer the same
problems.
One thing remains clear. Al-
ready on the back foot, Yamaha
can ill afford to dial the power
back. CN
For some years
now, Honda's
deviations, often
the consequence
of restless over-
ambition, have
been masked
by the ability
of Marquez to
overcome them.
