Each when it comes to the factors haul and when it comes to efficiency, the Malaysian Grand Prix represented the clear spotlight in Yamaha’s generally-anonymous 2024 MotoGP season.
Two Yamaha M1s completed a MotoGP race within the high 10 – a season first.
Fabio Quartararo flashed borderline podium tempo for a lot of the weekend – a season first.
Alex Rins was genuinely aggressive for greater than the ultimate points-paying place – a season first.
The pair mixed for 23 factors – a season first, with the earlier excessive watermark being 14.
The response from the 2 Yamaha riders, although, was one in every of satisfaction however hardly one in every of jubilation. And a part of that will probably be that, within the wider context of each Yamaha’s MotoGP historical past and the CVs of Quartararo and Rins, sixth and eighth place are desk scraps.
However it’s additionally clearly as a result of, whereas Yamaha has made progress, the proof that it has made big progress is, for now, incomplete.
The case for scepticism
A cursory have a look at MotoGP’s final two Malaysian Grands Prix facet by facet from a Yamaha perspective may recommend that between the 2 visits to Sepang it has merely stood pat, if not slid again ever so barely, within the aggressive order.
Quartararo was third within the Saturday morning follow that is all the time used for race runs – properly, he after which team-mate Franco Morbidelli have been first and second in the identical session final 12 months. Quartararo was 1.255 seconds off pole this previous Saturday – he was below six tenths off within the corresponding session final 12 months.
Within the grand prix, Quartararo completed 16s again over 19 laps, whereas final 12 months it was 15s again over 20 laps. Rins was 20s again – his predecessor Morbidelli was 18s off the win in 2023.
These are all margin of error numbers, albeit with the necessary caveat that on common the 2024 M1 has been a clearly weaker proposition – in relative phrases – than its 2023 predecessor.
Yamaha debuted a brand new engine spec this time at Sepang – its inline-four engine growth clearly continues even whereas a V4 unit is being readied for the medium time period – however the suggestion is that its affect on the weekend end result has truly been negligible.
As an alternative, each Quartararo and Rins pointed to a philosophy change in regard to the electronics set-up – a change Quartararo says has been pushed by Yamaha’s Ducati import Max Bartolini – that appears to have given the riders extra handbook management.
It is what Rins has been chasing – it is what he says he had at Suzuki and has been lacking at Honda and Yamaha. And there have additionally been positive aspects on the engine braking facet, which amongst different issues are imagined to ameliorate the M1’s struggles to utilize the rear tyre in braking, even when it is efficiently stored in touch with the bottom.
However it hasn’t been a silver bullet – Quartararo was eager to intensify that.
“I do not assume it is the important thing,” he stated. “However we’ll by no means achieve half a second by just one factor.
“I feel we have now to seek out half a tenth [everywhere] – half a tenth by electronics, half a tenth by the swingarm, then the facility, half tenth there.
“And we made a step, clearly, on this space, and there are lots of extra steps to do.
“However the good factor is we have now lots of concepts that we have not tried but. And the winter will probably be busy for the engineers.”
Sepang is not a observe that may punish the grip level-dependence of the M1 that Quartararo has highlighted time and again this season, nor will it expose its struggles in bringing the tyres as much as temperature.
There was an argument to be made that the Yamaha was the second-best producer at Sepang final weekend – perhaps not over one lap, the place it nonetheless critically underwhelms, however in race tempo.
However how a lot of that may be a reflection on its progress, and the way a lot of that’s KTM having a little bit of a messy weekend and Aprilia being in a late-season tailspin?
The case for optimism
If we do transfer the purpose of comparability barely, although, there may be not less than a suggestion of linear progress.
The Yamaha clearly could not stay with the 2023 Ducati final 12 months, however this 12 months, whereas that bike was typically out of attain in Marc Marquez’s arms, Quartararo was not all that far off Alex Marquez – who’s a super-credible reference level at Sepang.
Extra pertinently, although, the actual fact Rins introduced it house in eighth, simply 4 seconds behind Quartararo, and but was virtually lukewarm on his weekend as a complete, suggests an consciousness that the Yamaha’s ceiling in its lead rider’s was truly perhaps a good bit greater.
Apply tempo is rarely nice proof of that, however Quartararo would’ve been faster in a standard-issue grand prix. The primary-lap pile-up he was a part of initially meant that he was in harm limitation mode from the restart.
The crash pressured a change to a spare bike geared up with a medium entrance – a tyre Quartararo did not like and hadn’t run a lot, favouring the smooth – and a lightly-used rear tyre.
How a lot laptime was left on the desk because of this solely he and Yamaha will actually know but it surely will not have been nothing.
And do not forget that new engine spec, one which was supposed so as to add some top-end energy, one which seemed “clearly higher” popping out of testing? Nicely, on Quartararo’s facet the new-spec unit expired instantly on Friday, and he’d spent the remainder of the weekend operating the usual model. And it additionally meant that his spare bike was geared up with an older engine, up there in lifespan and thus restricted when it comes to energy, when he switched to it unplanned on Sunday.
There are low-hanging fruit for Yamaha to seize, and regardless of the asterisks at Sepang the general development within the second half of the season has been a promising one.
Was that additionally the case in 2023, and Yamaha being flattered by the make-up of the calendar? Very presumably. And the finale, moved to Barcelona, would be the actual take a look at.
However contemplating how grim issues seemed at the beginning of the 12 months, everybody on Yamaha’s facet will relish seeing these glimpses of sunshine on the finish of the tunnel, slightly than simply sitting round and ready for a V4 revolution.
