New chassis joins Rossi and Lorenzo’s Yamaha wish list

Yamaha’s engineering staff are coming under increasing pressure from Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo to upgrade its factory YZR-M1 in a bid to fight off the threat posed by rivals Honda.

The factory Yamaha duo have been pushing hard for months to get a new seamless shift gearbox to improve stability while upshifting through gears.

Both tested it recently during a two-day private session at the Brno track in the Czech Republic, but the new seamless shift system won’t be introduced by Yamaha until technical staff are convinced that it is 100% reliable and race ready.

The gearbox though is not the only area that Rossi and Lorenzo want to see their M1 machinery improved in the future.

Honda has drastically improved its RC213V in the braking zone in 2013 and when asked by MCN today in Brno what developments Yamaha need to work on other than the gearbox, Rossi said: “The new gearbox is very good but now we suffer in two or three places compared to the Honda. I think that in wide tracks we are very close but it looks like the Honda can finish the corner in less metres and they can brake deeper than us.

This is very frustrating for Jorge and me when we fight with the Honda because usually in braking they are stronger than us and we can’t do nothing. We have to improve these two things. I think it is more to come from the chassis and it is more mechanical.”

Lorenzo also said the ability of Honda duo Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez to brake later than him had become a critical weak point of the YZR-M1.

He told MCN: “I think we have good stability in the corners but we are losing in some hard braking points. Honda can stop the bike later so they can stop at the last moment but we need more metres and time to brake, so for me this is one of the main weak points we have.”

Lorenzo and Rossi ended the opening day of MotoGP practice in Brno today with the second and fourth fastest times respectively.