Max Bartolini recently spoke in an interview with GPOne about Yamaha’s current status in MotoGP and some of the reasons why the Japanese manufacturer has lagged behind European manufacturers in recent seasons.
Bartolini talks about Quartararo as a key player for Yamaha, but he also highlights the daily efforts of the Japanese manufacturer’s managers to improve the bike and catch up with its European rivals, namely Ducati.
– I had an idea. The bike itself doesn’t work badly, but in my opinion, when MotoGP evolved in certain aspects, they (Yamaha managers) underestimated its impact. What’s more, in 2021, the last year they won the title, Fabio was there to make the difference. All this has led them to fall a little behind. In modern MotoGP, if you get 7 or 8 tenths, you have a big difference, but in reality you’re losing two or three things. Like the aerodynamics, the lower part of the fairing, just those aspects that they underestimated.
He added, comparing Ducati to Yamaha: ‘After three or four years, you can’t invent something overnight. You can’t make another Ducati. Assuming you could make a Ducati, it wouldn’t be possible anyway. So we have to understand what we have and then improve it.’