The official Yamaha racing magazine - Yamaha-Racingparts

22 INSIDER
Yamaha is at the cutting edge of MotoGP technology. The factory’s YZR-M1 is
now acknowledged to be the best bike on the MotoGP grid, which is why it not
only won the 2008 riders’ title for Valentino Rossi but also the constructors’
crown for Yamaha and the team’s prize for Fiat Yamaha.
M1 DEvElOPMENT:
MOTOGP AT ThE CUTTING EDGE
The inline-four M1 is the best bike because it works so
well for the rider. When there’s more than 200 horsepower
available, the machine needs to be as rider-friendly as possible
to allow the rider to fully exploit the engine performance.
That is Yamaha’s man-machine interaction philosophy in a
nutshell.
Last season Yamaha made huge strides forward with
performance, increasing horsepower by 12 per cent and
torque by eight per cent, thanks largely to improved
combustion and reduced friction (with the new pneumaticvalve-spring
engine). Yamaha also developed improved
aerodynamics to reduce water and oil temperatures by up
to 15 degrees for better reliability. And the factory’s MotoGP
engineers transformed the electronic management systems
with state-of-the-art vehicle dynamics software that helped
the bike win ten of 18 races.
“The biggest improvement was engine power, we improved
a lot our top speed and also our acceleration,” says Rossi.
“The second step was the electronics, we improve a lot all
the systems for engine-braking control and traction control,
so you can feel the rear tyre very well. The chassis was also
better, so now you feel very connected to the front tyre, you
understand what the front tyre is doing.”
Electronics are currently the most fascinating area of
MotoGP technology. And Yamaha is leading the way in this
vital field with a new engine-management system which
uses two gyroscopes to measure the bike’s lean angle and
radical Yamaha vehicle dynamics software which calculates
tyre contact patch and delivers exactly the right amount of
torque at any lean angle.
The latest M1 engine-management system can make
even the best rider in the world a better rider, by delivering
computing power that can outperform the human brain. The
M1’s traction control works so well now that it is always
one step ahead of the rider, as Rossi’s crew chief Jeremy
Burgess explains: “If the rear tyre spins up it may take the
rider 0.3 second to react, whereas the electronics react in
microseconds, so they are much, much safer.”
Tech 3 Yamaha’s Colin Edwards is also hugely impressed
by the factory’s latest electronics that have allowed Yamaha
riders to change the way they attack corners and thus
improve lap times.
“We used to have to run a huge arcing line and stay on
that arc, now you can go in kinda hot, hammer it, pick it up
and go,” says Edwards. “If you’d told me three years ago that
I could go into a corner, then spin it at full lean and pivot
the bike, I’d never have believed you. Sure, you’d do that
occasionally, by accident, but nowadays it’s every corner, the
level of the electronics has gotten so high.”
Rossi agrees: “With the new electronics, the bike is so
easy to ride.” And, like we said, that’s what it takes to win
in MotoGP.
Masao Furusawa:
“ We never
stop development
in MotoGP”
“At Yamaha we have always recognised that
MotoGP is not only about racing – it is also an
advanced research and development arena for
future Yamaha supersport bikes, that’s why it is so
important to us. When we achieve good results, we
know that our work will benefit the bikes we sell to
customers, that’s one reason we were so happy to
win the 2008 MotoGP World Championship.
Our MotoGP and supersport staff groups
work very closely together. The supersport group
ride the YZR-M1 to experience and analyse its
performance. They also have frequent discussions
with the MotoGP group about how they can use
MotoGP know-how to improve the R1. Also, some
staff from the MotoGP group have been moved
to the supersport group to help this transfer of
technology. Rossi wasn’t specifically involved in
development of the R1, but the good work he does
on the M1 helps supersport development.
Many supersport bikes only look the same as
MotoGP bikes, but the latest YZF-R1 is closely
related to the M1 because it uses the same
crossplane crankshaft configuration which gives
it a very specific engine character. It was a simple
thing to decide that the R1 supersport bike would
benefit from the M1’s crossplane crankshaft
concept.
Of course, we realise that not all MotoGP
technology can be transferred to supersport bikes
like the R1 and R6; for example pneumatic-valve
systems and carbon brakes are technologies which
I believe will remain racetrack technologies.
We never stop development in MotoGP, we
always want to make the M1 a better bike, with
more features. And we hope that what we learn
in MotoGP will help us to keep improving our
supersport machines.”
INSIDER 23