Yamaha management probably don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Franco Morbidelli’s superb third MotoGP victory was Yamaha’s seventh of the year and puts the factory back in the hunt for the 2020 constructors’ championship, the title that may not mean much to many fans but, unsurprisingly, means a lot to constructors.
If Yamaha does win the prize it will be despite the 50 points taken away by the FIM stewards for using illegal engines at the season-opening Spanish GP and in spite of ongoing troubles with its 2020 YZR-M1.
Ironically, the engine controversy has allowed Yamaha to prove how reliable its engines can be.
“Franco is the fastest rider in MotoGP. He is the guy in the best shape”
Morbidelli’s Valencia success was a minor miracle of engine mileage because he’s been down to the last two of his five engines since Brno in August. He obviously isn’t allowed to use his first two, equipped with the wrong valves, and he blew his fourth during the second race at Jerez.
On Sunday Morbidelli beat Jack Miller’s lightning-fast Ducati GP20 using a YZR-M1 engine that had done around 1600 miles, almost double the usual mileage limit. He had already raced the engine in the San Marino, Emilia Romagna, Catalan, Aragon, Teruel and European GPs. No one knows for certain, but this must surely be the oldest engine to have won a race in the four-stroke MotoGP era.
Considering the fact that Maverick Viñales had to withdraw his fourth engine – with 1500 miles on the clock – at the first Valencia race, it will be an even greater miracle if Morbidelli makes it through next weekend’s Portimao season finale without cracking open a sixth engine and incurring a pit-lane-start penalty.
Incredibly, Morbidelli has achieved all three of his victories with the slowest bike on the grid. (Well, except for Lorenzo Savadori’s Aprilia in yesterday’s race.) He is using fewer rpm to coax more life out of his increasingly tired engines, which made his M1 a massive seven miles an hour slower than Miller’s 206mph Duke.
Morbidelli is so impressive – he lets nothing faze him, he just focuses on the things that are within his control, which yesterday was setting a super-fast pace and snatching the lead back from Miller with that audacious last-lap move at Turn Five.
Morbidelli celebrates with Forcada, the wisest Yamaha wizard in pit lane
Petronas SRT
But why is Morbidelli so fast, when his fellow Yamaha riders are so slow, relatively speaking? Is it really because he rides a 2019 M1 while Viñales, Fabio Quartararo and Valentino Rossi ride 2020 M1s?
That is the generally accepted view, but Rossi isn’t so sure. He thinks the difference is the man, not the machine. Although perhaps he should’ve said men, because Morbidelli has Ramon Forcada, Yamaha’s wisest man in pitlane, on his side.
“I raced last year with the 2019 bike and this year with the 2020 bike and for me the difference is not very big,” said Rossi after Sunday’s race. “I think Franco is doing an unbelievable season and at the moment he is the fastest rider in MotoGP. He is the guy in the best shape – for me this makes more difference.”
The Link LonkNovember 16, 2020 at 10:21PM
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Valencia MotoGP: Morbidelli's engine miracle, Yamaha's nightmare continues - Motor Sport
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