MotoGP: Yamaha Tests the 1,000cc M1 at Misano w/ Video

After finishing a very successful weekend at the San Marino GP, the factory Yamaha squad stuck around Misano for another day, and tested the 2012 Yamaha YZR-M1. Though the 1,000cc class MotoGP monster has remained basically unchanged from its debut at Brno, reigning World Champion Jorge Lorenzo and teammate Ben Spies continued development on the bike’s electronics package and overall setup. Misano proved to be a good contrast for Yamaha, as the Italian track’s tighter layout made the extra horsepower from the new M1 less of a factor than it was in the Czech Republic.

“It’s been a little bit more difficult here than Brno, which is a very fast track. Misano is a little bit slower so the difference between the 800 and the 1000 is much smaller,” said Jorge Lorenzo. “It’s difficult to understand the riding style you must use straight away. We’ve made a lot of progress in a couple of hours and the bike has a lot of potential. I’m very excited about the future. We’ve been working on the electronics to help in the braking area but mainly I’ve been getting used to the riding style of the bike and also adapting the bike to my riding.”

“We rode the same bike as we did in Brno but we changed a bunch of things and started working on a lot of electronics,” explained American Ben Spies. “Misano is a much more physical track; it’s quite tight so there’s a lot of wheelies and rear spinning. It’s fun to ride but very physical compared to the 800. I enjoyed it a lot and we went quite fast on it, getting some pretty good lap times. We’ve got a lot of data now for the engineers to go away and work on the next step for our next test. I think next year is going to be really good and I’m looking forward to racing the thousand!”

With Lorenzo lapping a 1’33.7 and Ben Spies slightly slower at 1’34.3 the 2012 Yamaha M1 is closing in on the pace from the 2011 models. On the current 800cc M1, Lorenzo set a top race lap time of 1’33.906 this past weekend, while Casey Stoner’s “best lap” from qualifying in 2008 remains still about half a second away at 1’33.378. Though the purpose of testing is to focus on reproducible and consistent results, and not outright fastest laps, it does show the rate of progress on Yamaha’s 2012 MotoGP effort.