Yamaha Motor Europe is making the most out of Toprak Razgatlıoğlu’s WorldSBK Championship title (along with the tuning fork brand taking the triple crown in the World Superbike series), and they have something special for 21 lucky buyers.
Making a limited-edition replica of Toprak Razgatlıoğlu’s Yamaha YZF-R1, the PATA Yamaha squad is making the bikes in Crescent Racing workshop.
The day is done and the battle is won. Yamaha claimed its third-consecutive Suzuka 8-Hours on Sunday.
The victory put a stamp on their dominance of the one race each year that the Japanese manufacturers place more emphasis on than any other. As such, Asphalt & Rubber takes a look at the winning machine, the Yamaha Factory Racing Team’s YZF-R1.
If you haven’t already drooled over the photos of the GMT94 Yamaha YZF-R1, we recommend doing so. The French outfit is fresh off a race win in Portimao, and a strong contender for the FIM Endurance World Championship (EWC) title.
Yamaha has two factory-supported teams though, the second being the Yamaha Austria Racing Team (YART), which won the Endurance World Championship in 2009, and is always a force to be reckoned with.
What has always struck me though, is how different the two teams build their bikes, despite starting with the same platform: the Yamaha YZF-R1. Today, I want to illustrate some of those changes, so we can enjoy the subtleties of the French and Austrian teams.
I was reminded by a recent post on Racing Café about the FIM Endurance World Championship, which despite being headed to its third round of the season (at Suzuka), is fairly wide open Championship for its top teams.
At the top of the standings is Team April Moto Motors Events, which is an unfamiliar name to us, but they are campaigning on the venerable Suzuki GSX-R1000.
Usually dominating on that machinery is the Suzuki Endurance Race Team (SERT), who are sitting in third, seven points back in the standings.
Between them is the SRC Kawasaki squad, who won the opening round at Le Mans, and is always a strong contender. You also can’t discount the GMT94 Yamaha squad, who just recently won at Portimao – the second round on the schedule.
The Suzuka 8-Hour is sure to disrupt the field even more though, as the track’s specialty outfits often out-class the EWC regulars. For instance, expect to see Nicky Hayden and the MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO team scalping some points in the process.
This means fewer points will be taken home for the factory teams, which only adds more credence to the FIM Endurance World Championship going to down to the season-closer, at the Oschersleben 8-Hour in Germany.
To help fuel the fire of interest in endurance racing, today we bring you some high-resolution photos of the French-based factory-backed Yamaha, the GMT94 Yamaha Official EWC Team.
Yamaha is headed back to the World Superbike paddock, and it is not taking any half-measures in doing so. As such, the Japanese manufacturer has retained the talents of Sylvain Guintoli (World Superbike Champion, 2014) and Alex Lowes (British Superbike Champion, 2013), with the highly regarded Crescent Racing running the factory-backed team.
Officially debuting the team today in Spain, along with Yamaha’s other racing programs, the Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team should be a potent package for the pinnacle of production motorcycle racing, and we expect strong results from them, right off the bat.
This is because the new Yamaha YZF-R1 had an entire year of honing at the national level, where in the USA it won both the Superbike and Superstock 1000 classes in the MotoAmerica racing series, and in the UK Josh Brookes took the BSB Championship victory as well.
Yamaha’s paper craft creations are always amazing pieces of work, and each one seems to surpass the prior, which is certainly saying something. The latest creation from Yamaha features the company’s crown jewel: the Yamaha YZF-R1M.
We cannot imagine the patience that goes into creating a paper 1:5 scale model like this, but artist Nobutaka Mukouyama must certainly have it in spades.
Yamaha calls Mukouyama-san’s latest creation an “ultra-realistic” version of the R1M paper craft, and warns that it is no small-undertaking to complete. We believe them.
Photos of a completed paper Yamaha YZF-R1M are after the jump, and if you want to tackle this project yourself, you can download the necessary files right here.
If any A&R readers finish one of these bad boys, please send us photos of your work!
Apologies, apologies, apologies for our tardiness in keeping your Two Enthusiasts Podcast addiction flowing, but never fear…Episode 13 is here, and it’s a good one.
In it, we run through some of the upcoming events in the moto-industry, one of which we will cover at length in Episode 14. We also tackle the looming sale of Deus Ex Machina to Louis Vuitton, and what it means for the beard and flannel crowd in the two-wheeled space.
And lastly, we give an update on the R1 recall and discuss the intricacies of US lemon law – though listeners should note that some of what we talk about regarding the recall has already been addressed by Yamaha, in the time it took us to get this show posted (we will wrap-up our R1 recall coverage in the next show as well).
All-in-all, we think Episode 13 is a pretty good show from the Two Enthusiasts Podcast crew.
As always, you can listen to the show via the embedded SoundCloud player, after the jump, or you can find the show on iTunes (please leave a review) or this RSS feed. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well. Enjoy the show!
Recalls are not the sexiest sounding subject to discuss on the Two Enthusiasts Podcast, but with the looming recall on the 2015 Yamaha YZF-R1, the guys tackle this important, and often overlooked, topic with zeal and vigor.
The show is actually more interesting than you would think, as Quentin and Jensen discuss what occurs before, during, and after a major recall like the one with the R1. We would say that this is a must-listen episode, on an unlikely subject.
As always, you can listen to the show via the embedded SoundCloud player, after the jump, or you can find the show on iTunes (please leave a review) or this RSS feed. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well. Cheers!
All the conjecture can finally be put aside, as Yamaha has finally pulled back the curtain on its rumored third variant of the current YZF-R1 – we simply know it as the 2016 Yamaha YZF-R1S.
As was rumored, the Yamaha YZF-R1S sits below what we used to call the “base model” R1, offering an even more affordable option for riders who couldn’t quite afford the current R1’s hefty $16,490 price tag.
Yamaha made no qualms about saying that the current YZF-R1 was a track bike first, a street bike second. Now replacing some of the more exotic parts on the R1, the R1S keeps much of the R1’s track-oriented DNA, but offers it in a more paltry $14,990 price tag, on a bike that is directed at more price-conscious street riders.
The end result is a machine that loses many of its magnesium parts for aluminum ones (oil pan, engine covers, wheels), as well as its titanium ones for steel ones (connecting rods and exhaust headers), which cause the YZF-R1S to gain 9 lbs over the YZF-R1.
Furthering the watering-down trend, the Yamaha R1S loses some power too, thanks in part to the steel con-rods, as well as a revised valve design.
As we speak right now, Endurance World Championship machines are lapping around the Paul Ricard Circuit, competing in the 2016 Bol d’Or 24-Hour race.
Ahead of the endurance event though, Yamaha’s factory teams debuted a tribute to the company’s 60th birthday, as Yamaha Motor Company was founded in July 1955.
For us YZF-R1 fans, this weekend means a special yellow and black “speedblock” livery for the Yamaha race bikes – a paint scheme that will be available to the general public (in Europe, at least) starting December 2015.
This isn’t the first time that Yamaha’s special limited edition speedblock livery has helped spice up the R1, and like its previous efforts, we like the result. The added Akrapovic pipe is a nice touch too.
Speaking of results, Yamaha Austria Racing Team (YART) is sitting in second place, at the time of this writing, just one lap behind the leaders, Honda Endurance Racing. Meanwhile, the French factory team that is Yamaha GMT 94 team sits in 5th (+4 laps), with roughly 11 hours remaining in the event.
We’re sure Yamaha would love to tie-up this press debut with a victory at the French track, with either of its yellow-clad factory teams. Until then, we have some super high-resolution photos of the 2016 Yamaha YZF-R1 in its 60th Anniversary livery. Drool over them, after the jump.
Yamaha has been rolling out some interesting YouTube fodder lately, with the most recent installment being a short video that features the five project leaders from the different generations of Yamaha YZF-R1 superbikes.
Unfortunately, we don’t get to hear too much from the Japanese project leaders, other than a quick one-line synopsis of what their project goals entailed, but we are treated to some good visuals of Valentino Rossi flogging the 2015 Yamaha YZF-R1 down the race track.
The best part of the video though might be the pride shown by these project leaders — they look like proud fathers standing next to their creations.