Yamaha's disaster — ‘I’ve never felt like this bike is mine’

This will surely prolong Yamaha’s pain. The factory’s main issues are the same they’ve been for several seasons – lack of brute horsepower and aggressive power delivery that causes the rear tyre to break traction, reducing acceleration – so its engineers badly need another stab at creating a better engine spec.

There’s little doubt that these problems come from the heart of the engine – poor combustion, incorrect crankshaft mass or whatever – but Rossi seems optimistic that Yamaha can massage the engine to improve performance from the outside.

“Now in MotoGP you can do a lot of things to improve performance from outside the engine, with electronics, cooling and the exhaust,” he said. “So if Yamaha work well and in the right direction we can do better.”

And what will Yamaha do about valves in 2021? Presumably its stock of 2019 valves, used since the second race at Jerez, won’t last into next season, so the MSMA (the manufacturers association) will have to allow Yamaha to use a new make of valve, if they want any M1s on the grid.

Yamaha’s valve nightmare began last winter when the company that makes the M1’s valves ceased manufacture. The factory found a new supplier for its valves but started the season using valves from two different companies. The valves were of the same spec, but they came from two different sources, which is against MotoGP’s engine rules that require each rider’s engines to be exactly the same as a sample engine delivered to MotoGP technical control before the first race.

MotoGP’s FIM stewards penalised Yamaha last Thursday, taking away constructor and team championships scored at the first race.

However, because neither the stewards nor Yamaha would publicly comment on the case it was impossible to find out exactly what had happened. This was bad news for MotoGP as a whole and especially for Yamaha, which looked like it had committed a worse crime than was actually the case.

Only when Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis spoke to MotoGP pit-lane reporter Simon Crafar on Saturday afternoon did facts replace misinformation.

When two of Yamaha’s first batch of eight engines (fitted with valves from the new supplier) broke at the season-opening Spanish GP the company built subsequent batches of engines with valves from the old supplier; the same valves as fitted to the sample engine.

Therefore Yamaha made its only rules infringements when all four riders used the new valves at the first race and when Morbidelli used one of the first batch of engines during Styrian GP practice and qualifying. Apart from those instances, all Yamaha riders used engines fitted with old-spec valves.

The reason Yamaha wasn’t penalised until last week, despite breaking the rules in July, was because the company had commissioned an independent analysis of both makes of valve, hoping to prove to MotoGP technical control that they were exactly the same. The results of that test became available last week, forcing Jarvis to admit that there is “some nuance in materials”. Sanctions were therefore imposed.

For the sake of Yamaha and of MotoGP, there needs to be better communication when the stewards impose sanctions for more complex rules violations. There is nothing whatsoever to be gained by such a lack of transparency.

Ironically, Yamaha’s worst race in 13 years may have been a blessing in disguise for everyone concerned, because if a Yamaha rider does win the title there’s no doubt the success will be a tainted, because how come Quartararo, Viñales and Morbidelli were allowed to keep the riders’ points they scored at Jerez while using illegal engines?

All three of them had fair to reasonable chances of hauling in points-leader Joan Mir until things went awry for all of them last weekend.

Now with two races remaining and a maximum of 50 points available they are surely drifting out of touch – Quartararo stands 37 points behind Mir, while Viñales and Morbidelli are 41 and 45 down.

Points aren’t the trio’s only problem. Yamaha’s engine nightmare will continue at the last two races. The Viñales engine that Yamaha withdrew on Friday had covered approximately 1400 miles, around 450 more than a MotoGP engine’s normal life.

Morbidelli seems to be in the deepest trouble. He goes into this weekend’s Valencia race with two engines – one that’s done about 1400 miles, the other with 1800 on the clock. It will be a miracle if the former Moto2 world champ gets through the last two races without a sixth engine, which would incur a pit-lane start.

Quartararo isn’t in much better shape. He also has two engines left, one with 1600 miles done, the other with 690 miles. The last two race weekends should add around 700 miles, so if his older engine finally cries enough his newer engine will also enter the danger zone.

Viñales is in the best shape, thanks to the introduction of his sixth engine, which covered around 225 miles last weekend. His older engine is also way past its use-by date, with about 1430 miles done.

Surely none of them can win the title from here. But this is 2020…