Racetrackmasters

Valentino Rossi will be anouncing his move to Petronas Yamaha SRT this week at the Catalan Grand Prix. The deal has been very much anticipated after it has been delayed for weeks, after the announcement was expected to be made in the Austrian Grand Prix. A series of meetings have been going on between Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis, Petronas Yamaha CEO Razlan Razali and Valentino himself in the last couple of weeks trying to get to an agreement on the deal, but finally the deal has been confirmed and it will be announced on Thursday at the Barcelona circuit. The final details of the contract were being put in place last week as the MotoGP events took place at the Misano Circuit for the San Marino and Emilio Romagna MotoGP. With Rossi being in his homeground and the other parties being at the same venue, it was easier to have face-to-face talks as Razlan Razali confirmed on social media. Valentino Rossi signed a year-long contract for 2021 with the Yamaha satellite team which is based in Malaysia. The contract does not last for just one year as there are speculations that Rossi may be looking for retirement, but because all the contracts will be coming to an end for the satellite team as they will be preparing for reorganisation for the 2022 MotoGP season. The deeper details of the contract are yet to be known, with the specification of his new bike and how much of his current crew will be joining him at Petronas SRT Yamaha which have seemed to be very difficult to come up with an agreement in the talks. On the other hand, some of Fabio Quartararo’s crew are looking forward to move with him from Petronas Yamaha to Factory Yamaha, and some of the straight personnel swap has been put in place to ease the transition between the two teams for the two riders. This could in turn open the door for the long waited VR46 Yamaha MotoGP team to join the grid for 2022. That’s an idea reinforced by rumours that the Petronas SRT squad is unhappy with its current status as a Yamaha client team while many of its independent rivals are becoming an increasingly key part of their respective factory set-ups. It’s not the first time a Yamaha satellite team has felt that way. Tech3 boss Herve Poncharal admitted in an exclusive interview after his team’s first win with KTM at the Styrian Grand Prix that he’d wanted more from Yamaha. Having moved to KTM in search of a closer factory relationship, he admitted that he thought Yamaha was moving in that direction with Petronas – but it seems according to The Race’s sources within the team that progress has been more limited than it appears from the outside. “When we were with Yamaha it was coming, they were starting to understand,” said Poncharal. “You always feel a little like you’re a weight on your factory – ‘oh we’re concentrating on the top guys, leave us alone, but they realised when I left them that they lost something they needed.” “Of course, Razlan stepped in and they did very well. He’s got the support of a huge sponsor, they picked up the right riders, and if you went to Yamaha now and told them that an independent team is a weight, they would disagree.” Should Petronas SRT decide to look elsewhere, there is a strong option available for it in the shape of Suzuki. Having admitted that it’s all but necessary to have a satellite squad for 2022 in order to further speed its rapid development, Suzuki has also hinted that its plan would be to field four identical machines instead of two different specifications as Yamaha currently does.

Maverick Vinales took first win of the 2020 MotoGP season after Francesco Bagnaia who was the race leader having a late crash giving the Yamaha rider victory in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Vinales had struggled from pole position in the first Misano race last week due to a wrong tyre choice, but it was later rectified in approach to a new set-up in practice meaning he was much stronger from the race start on Sunday. The 25-year-old Yamaha rider took the lead from the fast-starting Pramac’s Jack Miller around Turn 4 on the opening lap and was able to create half a second gap, as Miller’s hopes of a podium quickly faded and he would drop out of the race on lap eight after experiencing an engine issue. Bagnaia on the sister Pramac bike was the rider following Vinales closely by lap two, with the Italian rider finding a way through on lap six at Turn 4 when Vinales on the Yamaha ran wide. Bagnaia later opened up a lead of over seven tenths, by harnessing the power of the Ducatti and the grip from the rear soft tyre. This gave the rider the edge to widen the gap to over a second a few laps later. With KTM’s Brad Binder behind, chaos ensued after crashing at the Carro hairpin around Turn 14 on the second tour having just moved into the podium places. Moments earlier, Valentino Rossi on the Factory Yamaha fell back from the top eight at Turn 4 and eventually pulled out having only completed 12 laps. Bagnaia’s gap held stable between 1.4s and 1.6s as he lead the bikes, as Maverick Vinales comfortably closing the gap behind to the Pol Espargaro on the Factory KTM and Petronas Yamaha SRT with Fabio Quartararo. Though the gap had come down to 1.1s by the start of lap 21, Bagnaia still looked in control until he crashed going through the Turn 6 left-hander.  This released Vinales into a dominant lead to the chequered flag to become the sixth different winner in 2020 and move right back into championship contention.  The battle for second was very tight in the closing laps as Factory KTM’s pol Espargaro was experiencing problems with his soft rear tyre fading due to wear. Fabio Quartararo tried to close in on him on the Petronas Yamaha but the race concluded as he took 4th behind Espargaro. Suzuki’s Joan Mir closed in on this pair having started from 11th and overtook Quartararo in lap 23 at Turn 1 for third, before taking the second position from Espargaro at Turn 4 on lap 24. Quartararo followed him through at Turn 4, but was hit with a long-lap penalty on the final lap for exceeding track limits too many times. The Petronas rider did not take the penalty loop and was hit with a three-second time penalty at the chequered flag, dropping him to fourth and promoting Espargaro to the podium being third. Miguel Oliveira came through from 15th on his Tech 3 KTM to complete the top five ahead of LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami and Alex Marquez, who took his best result of the year on the works Honda in seventh. Andrea Dovizioso holds a one point lead over Quartararo in the standings after finishing down in eighth, with just four points now covering the factory Ducati rider, Quartararo, Vinales and Mir. San Marino GP winner Franco Morbidelli recovered from early contact after Aleix Espargaro crashed into him to finish ninth, with Danilo Petrucci (Ducati), Avintia’s Johann Zarco, Alex Rins (Suzuki) and Aprilia’s Bradley Smith claiming the final points. Tech 3’s Iker Lecuona crashed out of sixth in the latter stages, with Avintia’s Tito Rabat also crashing and joining Rossi, Bagnaia, Miller, Binder and Aleix Espargaro on the sidelines.

It was a tight first practice session as Fabio Quartararo led the Petronas SRT for a 1-2 lead in the inaugural Emilia Romagna MotoGP at Misano. This is the third time that the MotoGP has returned to the same circuit for a Grand Prix following the Tuesday tests. Franco Morbidelli in the sister Petronas Yamaha bike had set the earlier pace recording 1m 33.194s but KTM’s Pol Espargaro took over the lead moments later recording a lap time of 1m 32.390s. Morbidelli was not present in the Tuesday’s test due to stomach problems as later on shot to the top barely 15 minutes gone in the practice session recording 1m 32.365s in the timed lap, the 25-year-old would then go ahead to better his lap in the final 15 minutes recording 1m 32.224s. Ducatti’s Andrea Dovizioso later on went to snatch the lead from Morbidelli in the 6 final minutes recording 1m 32.152s on the soft tyres. The Ducatti rider had been struggling in the San Marino race weekend but the change in the bike’s set up seems to have done the magic. Dovi’s time was the benchmark briefly as Joan Mir in the Suzuki GSX-RR took the lead recording a lap time of 1m 31.926s. Quartararo later took on the Suzuki as he recorded 1m 3.889s and finished the session with 1m 33.721s lap. Franco Morbidelli opted for the hard tyre as the session was coming to a close and made a lap that was just 0.090s slower than Fabio Quartararo as KTM’s Pol Espargaro coming third as the session came to an end, despite his efforts coming on top briefly in the closing stages. Suzuki’s Joan Mir was pushed to fourth as Miguel Oliveira on the Tech 3 KTM closely followed in fifth. Takaaki Nakagami took the sixth position on the LCR Honda. Ducatti’s Andrea Dovizioso 1m 31.152s lap time got him the seventh position as Avintia’s Johann Zarco with his updated Avintia chassis took the 8th slot. Maverick Vinales who took the pole position at the San Marino GP took the 13th position though he didn’t participate in the final stages of the time attack. His teammate Valentino Rossi ended up 17th as he also did not go for a fast lap later on. Suzuki’s Alex Rins had a near miss at turn 5 and avoided crashing but 10 minutes later, a crash was inevitable at the Quercia corner around turn 8. The 24-year-old Suzuki rider took the 16th position as KTM’s Brad Binder and Pramac’s Jack Miller finished 14th and 15th respectively.

Maverick Vinales says he needs Yamaha to react urgently on his grip woes on the track after having a struggle in the San Marino Grand Prix last weekend. The Yamaha Factory rider went ahead to smash the Misano record lap to take the pole position as there were very high expectations to be the biggest threat to the victory following the perfect practice sessions. This however did not happen as Vinales dropped out of the podium battle finishing 6th which was 5.3 seconds later than the Petronas Yamaha winner Franco Morbidelli. There was speculation that Vinales troubles were due to his choice of being the only rider to run a hard rear tyre. The Tuesday’s test at Misano favoured the 25-year-old rider as he topped saying it was the ‘best of the year’, the excess of Michelin rubber on track made a very huge contribution to his success on the test. With this he urged Yamaha to find a solution allowing him to have the same feel of grip as the Moto 2 Dunlop rubber on Sunday afternoons. “I need to be quicker, so then the damage is less… So, if I’m a bit quicker in the practices, I’ll be a bit quicker in the race. We will try our maximum. For sure it’s not an easy point for us because we suffer a lot all the time on that.” Vinales said after he was asked on how he will handle the race weekend. “But I want a reaction from Yamaha. I want them to provide me with the best, because we came from Saturday to make a lap record in qualifying, from being a beast on track, and then we were a little kitty on the track. It’s something strange. I take it with humour because it’s the only thing I can do.” “On the test I felt good, honestly I felt incredible on the bike. We rode fast because at the end of the day I rode in 1m32s-low with a lot of laps on the tyre as the rhythm, which is good.” The Yamaha Factory rider continued “As we know when there is Michelin rubber, there is good grip. I can do whatever I want with the bike. But when there is no grip, it is difficult to ride” Maverick Vinales also tested the new exhaust and the carbon fibre swingarm as well as some additional settings which will be run in the Emilia Romagna MotoGP this weekend. His teammate Valentino Rossi will also be testing the new modifications on his bike.

Yamaha recently brought out its new modified exhaust for its for its YZR-M1 MotoGP bike at Misano race test, confirming the delivery of the predictions of modifications for the bike that Neil Spalding who is the MotoGP race technical guru had predicted two weeks ago. Yamaha had experienced a series of engine failures at the two opening events at Jerez which had been caused by faulty valves as the team tried to change engines so as to get the maximum out of the bike, but this has lead to rev restrictions have been minimised by 300rpm for the Yamaha riders as they struggled in Brno and Red Bull Ring last month. Yamaha’s problem can be however rectified by using a new and longer exhaust system, changes were evident on the bikes of Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi. “Yamaha definitely cooked some of their engines right at the start of the year, and that damaged the valves, but sealed engines mean they’re not allowed to change those valves. So they’ve got to run the rest of the year with those engines and now they’ve got to find a way to put them under less stress.” Neil Spalding explained. “The only way to do that is to reduce the maximum revs and then try and build all of the equipment on the outside of the sealed engine to try and help that engine make its best power lower down the rev band. “That is typically going to include modified throttle bodies inlet lengths and most critically a new exhaust system with longer primary pipes and a longer overall length to help the engines make better power at lower rpm.”