It has been a turbulent time for the Japanese manufacturers. Yamaha and Honda have dominated MotoGP for years, but now they find themselves struggling to score points, far removed from their former competitive selves. Monster Energy Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo went from winning the MotoGP crown in 2021, to finishing runner up to Pecco Bagnaia last year, to languishing down in eleventh place in the championship, 149 points behind the leader Bagnaia.
At least Yamaha are in better shape than Honda. The 2023 Yamaha M1 is not a bad bike, it is just slow, with aggressive power delivery. Quartararo managed a podium in Austin, and another in the sprint race in Assen, showing that in the right conditions, the bike still has a chance to be competitive.
That is not going to be enough to allow Quartararo to compete for a championship over a full season, however. To achieve that, much bigger changes are needed, both in terms of engineering and the entire development process.
The person charged with overseeing the European side of that process is Yamaha Motor Racing's Managing Director Lin Jarvis. He is the counterpart to Takahiro Sumi, who leads Yamaha's Motorsports Development Division, and Kazutoshi Seki, who is MotoGP Group Leader and the YZR-M1 Project Leader. Improving the synergy between the European and Japanese parts of Yamaha's MotoGP project is going to be key to making progress.
I spoke to Jarvis at Silverstone. In a long conversation, Jarvis explained the rationale behind allowing Franco Morbidelli's contract to laps at the end of this season, and how they signed Alex Rins to take his place. We also discussed how the Japanese factories fell so far behind, and what they have to do to catch up.
And in the second part of this interview, to be published on Wednesday, we talked about Yamaha's plans for a satellite team, and how they might change their approach. And we discussed why Yamaha would welcome concessions, and exactly what kind of concessions might help them be competitive.
Q: So first of all, what happened with Frankie? It was clear that Franco was struggling, and he made a little bit of progress. But he never seemed to break the spell?
Lin Jarvis: This year has been better than last year for sure. And we've seen some glimpses of what he has the potential to do. And in particular obviously the highlight of the year so far for him really was Argentina. He had a good race and qualified I think P4, finished the race in P4, and P4 in the Sprint. And anyway, it was a P4 weekend, which was was good. And that was encouraging and as you know, with riders that can be a turning point, and help them re-find their confidence and so forth. But it's not easy. Anyway, as you've seen this afternoon is another good example of why it's not easy when you have so many Ducatis on the grid that are very strong as a bike and ride a package, and team package because everything is working at the moment for them. Plus you've got the KTMs which you've refound their competitiveness, which they seemed to not be there at the very beginning of the year at testing and so forth.
So when you've got all these European brands there plus Aprilia today, who were back on form again, it's really not easy to to guarantee to finish in the top group regularly at the moment. So we've seen ups and downs, and But we've never really truly seen the spark that he showed in the past.
We could have continued with Frankie for another year, but our thought was pretty much there. We knew where we were at. We knew probably what we would get. And having the opportunity to take Alex Rins is a refreshment, and sometimes you need a refreshment. Sometimes you just need to shake up the mix of the assets you've got.
Comments
No to concessions
Interesting to see at Silverstone that Yamaha made some progress on aero, Fabio being complimentary of the KTM copy-cat package. But I wonder where further progress will come from? Ducati has been investing in aero for years, Aprilia also. KTM called in Red Bull F1 for help. Honda have their F1 experience to call on (and yesterday's HRC article suggests Honda is finally going to do that.) Yamaha has little experience in aero and no partner (yet) to call on. Feels like a liability going forward. That said, I do wish MotoGP would ban it. It has no practical use in the real world.
Re The Japanese manufacturer's engine woes: Suzuki showed you can make sufficient power out of an I-4 to be competitive. Yamaha improved power some this year. Honda uses the same V-4 config as the rest of the grid. Power is not Honda's problem.Their issue and Yamaha's is getting power to the ground. Chasis is maybe part of the problem but the bulk of the issue appears to be electronics. Baffling that the country that introduced fuel injection to motorcycles and is known to excel in all things electronic can't after seven years (the spec ECO was intro'd in 2016 correct?) find anyone that can program a Magneti Marelli ECU. Ran across some articles from 2015 where Marquez said the spec ECU was a "step behind" and Rossi a "step down" from their in-house electronics. Maybe at the time, but seven years on smaller factories are running rings around the Japanese with the same unit. That' is not a ECU problem. That's a programming problem. Embarrassing.
Do the Japanese manufacturers need concessions? Sucking at aero because you ignored its progress for too many years should not be an excuse for concessions. The smallest team on the grid, Aprilia, has not only kept up but excelled in aero. On the engine front, their problems appear rooted in ECU programming. Also doesn't seem like concession territory to me. If Honda or Yamaha were trying to develop a completely new engine-type, I could see granting some concessions, but concessions to recover from consciously dropping the ball on aero and electronics for sevenish years? No. That's their doing. No concessions.