Both riders agreed the engine was an improvement, but their comments reveal Yamaha’s deeper problem. The Japanese engineers brought two engines for Viñales and Rossi to test at Valencia and Jerez, aimed at solving the issues. That, in a nutshell, is how Yamaha finds themselves where they are. And so they ended up with an engine that was too aggressive and chewed through rear tyres in the first half of the race. But they also needed to find more power and speed, while trying to master the electronics. They had to reinvent the chassis to give more feedback from the front tyre, while pampering the rear. The spec Marelli software has no such sophistication: the engineers must optimise the engine mapping for the entire race, leaving riders to manage tyre wear by manually selecting TC and engine braking maps.Īs the Hondas got faster and the Ducati got better at going round corners, Yamaha found themselves facing two challenges. Their ‘Mu Learning’ software was so clever that it would calculate tyre wear from lap to lap, and adapt itself appropriately. The loss of Yamaha’s proprietary software was a more sensitive blow. The different character of the Michelins did not suit the high corner speed nature of the M1, the front end not providing the confidence needed to fling the bike in and rail around the corner. Yamaha’s decline coincides with the change from Bridgestone to Michelin tyres, and the switch to the spec Magneti Marelli software. That year, Yamaha gained 11 wins and a total of 30 podiums. More worryingly, 2018 was not a one-off, but part of a longer decline since the high point of 2015, when they won the rider, manufacturer, and team triple crown, Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi taking first and second in the championship. Third in the manufacturer standings behind Honda and Ducati, the Movistar Yamaha team third in the team standings, behind the factory Honda and Ducati teams. 2018 was a bad year for Yamaha: 13 podiums from 19 races, including a single, solitary win, the first in 26 GPs.

Moto gp 2019