After another disappointing weekend at Motorland Aragon, Yamaha factory team in MotoGP has now a new record to its name, but this is a record no one really wants to have. Yamaha last won a MotoGP race 23 races ago, and that’s an “improvement” on the old 22 winless run from the 1996 to the 1998 season, at the time the 500 cc championship.
Asked about the problems on the Yamaha M1 prototype, Valentino Rossi, who continues to be consistently the best Yamaha rider and finished the Aragon GP in 7th, which allows him to keep the third position overall, went straight to the subject and urged Yamaha management in the racing department to go forward with radical changes
“The last major change on the M1? In 2015, in the tests here at Aragon before the Assen GP, in which I won. Just look at my time in the race today, it is just better than last year, when I came from the injury. The bike is the same as in 2017 and I finished 8th instead of 5th, while Marquez and Dovizioso improved their race time by more than 10 seconds. Of course in this situation it is difficult to find motivations, I am in a top team and I have to fight to finish, perhaps, in the first 10. I hope they find a solution within the next two years, or it may no longer be my problem after 2020”, said Rossi, and continued to attack Yamaha strategy pointing the finger to what he believes is the problem
Valentino Rossi and Masao Furusawa
“In 2004 Masao Furusawa set up a program to change the racing department, there were important changes and to get out of this situation you would have to do the same thing. I do not think the problem is me and Vinales. When I arrived in 2004, we organized two private tests at Phillip Island. There were so many things to try: three engines, two crankshafts, and much more. Yamaha had hired me, but he did not think I would solve everything by myself. There had been a wide-ranging project, a re-foundation of the racing department, and it had worked. Usually we were testing the prototype of the next year’s bike in the tests on Monday in Brno, since a couple of seasons we don’t do that anymore. This is worrying: where is the 2019 bike? I don’t know. Here at Aragon, in the tests, I had a first version of the 2019 engine but I hope and I think it was not the final one, because it changed too little from the current one. Tyres? They have nothing to do with it, those are the same for all and both Ducati and Honda are able to improve. We cannot make the rear tyre wor
Since Masao Furusawa decided to retire, the factory Yamaha team has been struggling to get the results they need to be fighting for the championship, and while their main rivals keep improving their prototypes, the M1 is still struggling to offer the performance Rossi and Viñales need to get the much needed wins on race day.
Will Yamaha decide to do another re-foundation of their racing department just like they did in 2004? We don’t know, and without the strength and vision of Furusawa at the helm of the racing department, we believe that won’t happen, even if it’s Valentino Rossi himself asking for such a radical change.
But will Yamaha be able to turn their fortunes without such a radical change? At the moment, that’s something highly unlikely.