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Do you remember when the Yamaha M1 was the more or less forbidden dream of every rider? Fast and effective, both in the expert hands of riders aiming for the title and in those of rookies. It was said to be an 'easy' bike - as much as a MotoGP bike can be - good for all seasons. Rossi and Lorenzo wrote history with it, in more recent times Quartararo did too and even Morbidelli came close. All this, however, seems to belong to the past.
After the first 5 Grands Prix of the season, Yamaha is a melancholic last in the constructors' standings, behind even Honda who everyone says terrible things about. It has 58 points, just over a third of Ducati, just over half of KTM. Down in the Bronx, basically.
That the M1 is struggling is nothing new, if one considers that its last race victory is dated June 19, 2022, at the Sachsenring (almost 11 months ago). After that Sunday, just 3 podiums: two last year and one this 2023, all for Quartararo. What has happened is not so easy to say. Because, at the end of that German GP, Fabio was leading the World Championship and in the first 10 races he had won 3 times and got on the podium 5. Then darkness fell.
At Iwata they realized that something was not going right and so they started collaborating with Luca Marmorini – an engineer of F1 origin - to revitalize the 4-cylinder in line, unique on the MotoGP grid. In the meantime, they also worked hard to improve the old-fashioned aerodynamics. In fact, for the first time in years, in the winter tests the blue box was full of new components, including assorted wings, chassis and so on and so forth.
However, when the time came to compete with the others in the first races, the situation did not change. The M1 is fast on pace as long as it's on its own, but it struggles in the group. Furthermore, even on the flying lap it doesn't stand out very much (the best result in qualifying was that of Morbidelli in Argentina, 4th). Apart from a podium by Quartararo in Austin and two fourths by Franco at Termas de Rio Hondo, it has been a deep crisis.
It is logical that a certain nervousness is spreading among the riders. "Nothing they brought worked," Fabio blurted out at Le Mans referring to the Jerez tests. Then he revealed that he was relying on the 2021 set-up, "I won't touch anything anymore and if there are problems I will adapt," he explained. Morbidelli, on the other hand, is using last year's setup: in short, nothing is going well in 2023.
Why? Power is a key point. The riders have been looking for more hp for years, this year it has arrived, but it is not enough and has complicated the situation. Because on the one hand delivery is more aggressive and seems to have thrown the proverbial balance of the M1 into crisis ("stability when cornering was our strong point, now it is no longer" were Quartararo's words) and on the other the improvement was not enough to overdo it on the aerodynamics.
“Do you see the wings of the KTM? If we put them on the M1 we would lose a lot of speed" explained the Frenchman. In fact, the configuration on the Yamaha is the most 'unloaded' in MotoGP, at a time when wings, spoilers and fins make the difference. They don't make the bike wheelie when accelerating, keep it stable when braking and are also useful when cornering. This is the cornerstone on which Ducati has built its successes and the path that Aprilia and KTM have also followed.
In addition to the technical reasons for the delay, there are also other more human ones. The Japanese mentality is very different from the European one; when there are problems, reaction times are slower (and in fact, Honda is now also banking on Kalex). Quartararo also made it clear when speaking of the work of test rider Crutchlow: "Cal is helping us to change the mentality of the engineers".
The loss of a satellite team also didn't help, even though the riders aren't complaining too much about this. After all, in recent years, with Dovizioso and Rossi at the end of their careers and Darryn Binder thrown into the fray from Moto3, the second team could do little for the cause.
Now, however, Quartararo and Morbidelli find themselves with an M1 that has gone from being the queen of MotoGP to just any old Cinderella, losing all its strengths without having gained any new ones. They are digging into the past to find their way to the future, a risky operation when all their opponents keep moving forward.
