MotoGP: The Yamaha M1 wins its fifth race from six starts

Two years ago the Yamaha M1 factory prototype racing machine was not considered competitive. It struggled throughout the Moto Grand Prix racing year, and in the hands of two of the finest professional motorcycle racers in the world, Spaniard Carlos Checa and Brazilian Alex Barros, it finished an entire season with just one third place as its sole podium from 32 starts. In 2004, Yamaha was fortunate to be able to obtain a rare and frightfully expensive Valentino Rossi throttle controller for one of its machines, making the machine far more competitive – from 16 starts in 2004, the Rossi-fitted machine won nine times and placed second twice. The three non-Rossi M1s continued their indifferent displays – Checa was joined by Marco Melandri and Norick Abe on the same M1 machinery and between the three of them, in 16 races, they notched up one second and two third places – three podiums from 48 starts.

There is no doubt that the M1 is coming forward in leaps and bounds. Fettled by Rossi’s chief engineer South Australian Jeremy Burgess, the bike has been the subject of almost continuous improvement. As this story is being written, Rossi, Burgess et al are all safely tucked in bed, getting a good night’s sleep when any other team might be celebrating today’s glorious Grand Prix win against Rossi’s former friend and now arch-enemy Sete Gibernau.

The team is preparing to fit new parts to the bike that won today so they can test tomorrow at the same circuit – despite winning five of the first six races of the season, (and a second place, to the aforementioned Barros riding a Honda), the continuous stream of new go-fast goodies emanating from Yamaha is increasing rather than decreasing.

Burgess and a goodly proportion of the race team came from Honda where they supported Rossi from the time he entered the premier class in 2000, through his world championships in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Burgess controlled the development of the bikes that also took Mick Doohan to five World Championships and Wayne Gardner to one – so there’s no doubt that the bike is infinitely better than it was, and every race gets closer to the calibre of the machines it is beating – the RC211Vs.

Yamaha’s opportunity to obtain Rossi came at the end of 2003 when in negotiations for the 2004 season, Honda made the mistake of suggesting that it would win the world title regardless of whether Rossi was in the saddle of the RC211V.

To Honda, it probably seemed logical – in the three years of MotoGP, Honda RC211V machines had won 45 of 48 races, and on those occasions when Rossi hadn’t won, he had been beaten by Barros, Ukawa, Biaggi or Gibernau on the same RC211V Honda. The three that got away were two wins to Biaggi on the M1 in the first year, and Loris capirossi's win on the Ducati.

What else could Rossi do? In terms of negotiating positions, Rossi had nowhere to go. From Honda’s point of view, in the 16-race series of 2003 that had just finished, it had won 15 of 16 races, filled the podium six times, and supplied two of the top three finishers in the other ten races. Mick Doohan won five titles in a row for Honda, and when he became injured and couldn't defend his title in 1999, Alex Criville won on another Honda.

Kenny Roberts' win on the Suzuki in 2000 should have been the warning Honda heeded.

The decision to play tough in the negotiations is one Honda will probably rue forever because if it hadn’t done so, Rossi would still be winning, and Honda would have maintained its dominance. If no-one can beat Rossi consistently on better machinery, they certainly wouldn't be doing it on lesser machinery.

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