By Ollie Barstow
Yamaha dominated the 2020 MotoGP season in terms of stats… but won no silverware. How did it drop the ball and kick it into the ocean?
And yet the owner of those digits – Yamaha – will wear what is normally a very proud achievement rather more like a heavy stone.
By all accounts, this was an open goal missed for Yamaha… it didn’t skyrocket it over the bar so much, more showboated and stumbled.
Of course, if you break it down, the fact the wins were spread over three riders alone goes some way to explaining why it didn’t lift the individual crown, but take stock of this stat; Fabio Quartararo had the best stats of any rider with three wins and four pole positions, while he led the way from Round 1 to Round 11 of 14… he’d go on to finish eighth overall in the end.
In fact, it was fairly grim reading all round… and worryingly for Yamaha, it was down to a variety of different reasons too. The Yamaha M1 by all accounts is an excellent bike in the sweet spot, albeit best achieved on sticky rubber chasing a lap time – in other words, in qualifying.
Considered to have the best, or most compliant, chassis on the grid, the M1’s weaponry has been blunted over the years because in race trim it’s advantages are nixed racing in a pack. Passes largely come with a follow, set-up, execution tactic… but if you don’t have the legs to get you alongside, it’s making life harder.
However, it’s also been hampered by rivals pushing the envelope on power (albeit with mixed results if you ask Ducati and Honda), with the riders’ requests-turned-pleas to extract more ponies from the M1 essentially filed in the bin.
A few years ago Yamaha were probably on the right track but in 2020 it saw Suzuki – which usually joins it in propping up the top speed charts – take a notable step forward in that area without sacrificing any of the agility and tyre preservation that made it quick in the first place. In short, Yamaha has resisted working on its engine because it doesn’t think it can without overhauling the chassis too… except, Suzuki has done just that and, well, it is our latest champion.
All Yamaha riders – save for Franco Morbidelli, who just rides what he is given – have complained about the lack of performance hampering its efforts, but at the heart of the problem is seemingly a disconnection from engineers in Japan and those that run the bikes in Europe as they have different ideas about what makes a MotoGP machine fast.
It’s hard to argue against Yamaha wanting to centre the operation in Japan – they wield the chequebook and heritage is taken seriously – but especially in 2020, Europe is where the more immediate influence is. Watching rivals week in, week out, seeing where their improvements come from… it’s hard to remember exactly when Yamaha last made a significant change to the M1 in terms of ethos.
Even Rossi for all of his notorious efforts to drive the Yamaha development in his vision has joined the picket line with Maverick Vinales and Fabio Quartararo in calling for more rider input. While there is clearly respect between the team and its riders, the fissure is growing and you have to wonder what Yamaha has to gain by following this track when seven wins (50%) of race wins doesn’t get you particularly close to any titles.
Quartararo (politely… he is only a second year rider after all) suggests this is the case. “I will give my opinion to Yamaha and I hope they will listen to it. I will do anything to help bring this bike to the top . There is good work to be done in the winter. This will be important because we cannot modify the engine, so we will have to work on all areas.”
Source:visordown.com