Yamaha launches 2021 M1 MotoGP challenger
For the first time since his return from Ducati in 2013, nine-time mammoth prix world champion Valentino Rossi won’t rate a section of the Yamaha’s manufacturing facility line-up.
Eight-time MotoGP flee winner Vinales – who joined Yamaha from Suzuki in 2017 – remains with the squad, with three-time flee winner Quartararo making the step up from Petronas SRT.
Yamaha’s livery is largely corresponding to that it ran final season, as its title sponsorship with Monster Vitality remains in space.
Yamaha won half of the 14 races flee final season, however continued a wildly inconsistent season, with its high runner within the championship SRT’s Franco Morbidelli in 2d on a 2019 M1.
Vinales used to be the high positioned 2020 Yamaha rider in sixth within the standings, having won at the Emilia Romagna GP.
Quartararo’s solid early-season rate deserted him within the final rounds, with the Frenchman fading from title contender to eighth within the championship despite a haul of three victories.
Both Vinales and Quartararo had been very vocal about the deficiencies of the 2020 M1, with the fashioned admitting within the latter section of the campaign that it used to be “very no longer seemingly” to maintain about winning on the bike.
Yamaha used to be additionally embroiled in controversy silly-season when it used to be came upon guilty of working non-homologated engines at the opening Spanish GP final July.
Which skill of an “inner oversight”, brought on by a vendor no longer making the homologated section it wished for 2020, Yamaha fielded engines with unlawful valves at the Spanish GP.
These engines within the slay proved to be unreliable too, with Vinales and Rossi losing devices on the opening weekend. Yamaha used to be pressured to withdraw two from each and every rider’s allocation as a results of the non-homologated valves.
In 2021, fashioned Tech3 rider and three-time MotoGP flee winner Cal Crutchlow will attend as Yamaha’s authentic test rider, replacing triple world champion Jorge Lorenzo within the role.
Yamaha’s satellite squad SRT will launch its 2021 season with Rossi and Franco Morbidelli on 18 February.
Yamaha YZR-M1, Yamaha Factory Racing
Photo by: Yamaha MotoGP