Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1542349
The Grand Plan Vfet+-ffi proved the man was more important than the machine. Now, another title later, he is proving iust how deep that cuts - by also prwing how important the man is to the machine, as well as the results. The tlvo go hand in handle- bar, and one is nothing wi*lout the other This is demonstrated by the remark- able transformation over those two years to the Yamaha M I itself The most impor- tant technical change was the introduc- tion of the whoopsy-daisy vinual-V'four revised firing intervals that coincided with Rossi's arrival. But the true transforma- tion has been achieved by a program of detail design and engineering improve- ments. Do not underestimate the cgordi- nation within Yamaha's engineerinS department that has enabled this achieve- men! to come to pass, but the real drive has come from the rider Rossi, and even more importantly his race engineer Jeremy Burgess, working in tandem. The forthcoming season will be the true test, but everyone was impressed at how the'06 M I dominated the Catalunya tests - not only in Rossi's hands, but also Colin Edwards'. and even Carlos Checa's, riding on previously bottom-of-the-class Dunlops. (Since then, the Yamahas fell into a deep pit at .lerez tests with the return of front-end chatter problems, but at this stage it's still possible to:lssume this is a blip, and there is every chance it will be fixed by race time - at least for purposes of argument.) All of this gave credence to Burgess' behind-the-pits chat. l've known this deeply pragmatic race engineer for don- key's years - since he started way back with Wayne Gardner in 1987 - and he's a man never at a loss for a down-to-earth and r.rsually highly entertainingexplanation. This was phase three, he explained. Year one had been dedrcated to winning the title on what they had. Year two had secured the title again, while at the same time turning the bike into a more reliable race winner. Now in year three, the tar- get was to make a bike on which other riders could also win races. Yamaha had been able to do this, he explained, because Rossi was good enouSh to win on last year's bike, in spite of its flaws, although Edwards and the other riders all had problems. As a conse- quence, Yamaha was not forced into mak- ing band-aid remedies. lnstead they had the relative luxury of being able to sit back, analfre the data, and discuss the problems at their leisure. And then come up wirh a fully considered and fully engi- neered solution. The result was the 2006 Ml. a bike so thoroughly improved (according to Edwards) that you couldn't pick out one area over any of the others. It was iust better at everything, The achievement needs to be proved, and progress during this season will determine the truth of everything. But with Rossi at the helm, this would seem to be a shoo-in. This is not iust a matter of satisfaction, however, but a typical modern racing strategy. Over recent years, Yamaha has gained the one rider that everybody wants, but lost a whole hatful of potential successors. Nicky Hayden signed, kind of, but then wriggled out of the deal to go with Honda. Marco Melandri went to Honda, too. Now the promising Toni Elias has also gone. When it comes to strength in depth, it all bled away. After all, the Honda was the bike everyone wanted to ride. Doomsayers predicted problems for Yamaha when Rossi goes - very likely at the end ofthis year. But if he has left them with the fabled bike everyone wants to ride, then Yamaha will be able to take their pick, just as Honda has been able to do until now. For Rossi, this is doubly turning the tables on his former employers. Or even a triple-whammy. He took the title, took the technical lead, and now his legacy means Yamaha willtake the riders as well. The remarkable thing is iust how Honda has cooperated in its own down- fall. When Rossi left at the end of 2001, their V-five was the pole star of the grid - the cynosure, the sine qua non, and the dog's bollocks. Fast, user-friendly... every- one wanted one. Bereft, HRC turned in 2004 to veteran Alex Barros to lead development. Sete Gibernau would have been a better bet, but he was sidelined in a satellite team. Barros kind of missed the boat for various reasons, but the V-five was still a good enouSh bike to mask the cost of this lack of well-directed development. For 2005, another rather sLrrprising decision put Max Biaggi at the top, along- side his former crew guru Erv Kanemoto - famous from the Spencer-Lawson era, when he won dtles with both. F1ax, Erv and the motorcycle were famously at odds all year long, and the failure was such that by the end of it, both were required to fall on their swords. Max and Erv both have been cast out into racing's wildemess. Now Honda was in something of a dilemma. Having dumped Max, the/ lost Barros and the whole Pons team in the consequent Camel sponsorship fallout, and also Gibernau, who iumped ship to to Ducati. For this year, they promoted Hayden to top rider, and shoved fast rookie Dani Pedrosa straight into the fac- tory team alongside him (losing another sponsor, Telef6nica MoviStar, as a result). Double 250cc World Champion Pedrosa will ride a production-level bike for his learning year. Now it gets strange. Melandri, who was actually more o{ a threat to Rossi last year than Hayden, not only stays with his satellite Gresini team, but will not get a factorT bike. This in spite of having had one at the end of last season. when he claimed his two wins. Hayden thus leads the development of the RCV on behalf of all the riders - and does so completely alone. Given his rela- tive lack of experience in development, and no 125 or 250cc years either, this rs going to test areas of his talent that are of uncertain depth. It's an unenviable position for the Kentucky Kid. Get it wrong, and poor Nicky stands to become yet another HRC sacrificial victim. History makes it clear that he's in line for the blame, unless he and crew chief Pete Benson (in only his second year in the job) can find a way to turn his thus-far disappointing one-man motorcycle into somethinS more effec- tive over the course of the first couple races, if not sooner. All this overlook one thing, however This fine and admirable machine devel- opment will be largely irrelevant 12 months from now. The 990s will be in the trash can - alongside the 500cc two- strokes they replaced only four short sea- sons ago. Yamaha may have made the bike that everyone wants to ride, but it will have nowhere to ride the thing except (one day) in classic races. There'll be an all-new 800cc l.lotoGP bike instead. W-hat's the befting that Honda's current apparent lack of attention and direcion is because it is devoting its considerable resources elsewhere? Accepting the futility of putting more into the old 990, especial- ly in the almost hopeless quest of beating a soon-to-depan Rossi, I beliwe their real focus may be on the new 800cc class- Don't be surprised if Honda comes out the same way they did with the 990s - with the bike that says it all, and wins it all. GN CYCLE NEWS . MARCH 29,2006 95 IN THE PADDOCK Bv Mrcxarl Scorr fr ,/ I Y a o / \ \ \ ./ >\- I ,.' l O.