Will past MotoGP demons haunt Yamaha at Jerez?

After four long months, the 2020 MotoGP season finally got underway on Friday with the first two practice sessions for the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez.

The day was topped by reigning world champion Marc Marquez on the combined timesheets, but Yamaha looked to be delivering on its pre-season promise with strong showings for factory rider Maverick Vinales and Petronas SRT duo Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli.

However, there were signs that suggest Yamaha's old flaws are still present in its 2020 machine, with Quartararo admitting on Wednesday that the bike wasn't the one to beat on the grid.

It was a comment that didn't seem to hold much weight at the time, given Vinales topped the test ahead of Quartararo. Indeed, Vinales looked settled in the slightly cooler FP1, ending up just 0.024 seconds behind the pacesetting Marquez.

But in FP1, some telltale signs that the M1 could be up against it this weekend crept through. On the speed trap figures (which appear more representative from FP1 owing to the cooler conditions leading to more putting in time attacks), four of the slowest five bikes were Yamahas.

In both sessions, it was the Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso who was fastest with a best speed of 296.7km/h. Morbidelli was the closest Yamaha at 287.2km/h, while the slowest - Valentino Rossi and Quartararo - posted a speed of 284.9km/h.

Both Rossi and Quartararo expressed worry about it, but Vinales was confident his exit from the Turn 5 right of Sito Pons onto the back straight would make him hard to overtake. Vinales also hinted that Yamaha was trying its own version of Ducati's 'active holeshot' device to "improve the top speed". However, he also said he didn't think it was ready to race.

Nor, would it seem, is his team-mate. Rossi was outside of the top 10 in FP1 and was a low-key 20th in the afternoon. Trying race set-ups, Rossi's old woe of poor tyre wear and a lack of grip in hot conditions meant he was "never fast" during his runs. Given Michelin's new rear tyre is aimed at improved grip and durability, this perhaps suggests the problem lies with Rossi more than the M1.

"It was a difficult day for me because I was never, never fast," Rossi grumbled. "This morning was a bit better, but this afternoon we struggled more.

"For me, the Yamaha this year is much more difficult to ride than last year. So, I think everybody needs to change a little bit this way of [thinking] that the Yamaha is an easy bike" Fabio Quartararo

"[It] looks like that we are always in trouble with the temperature of the rear tyre and the grip with the rear tyre. This morning was a bit more cold and I was closer. This afternoon with more temperature I suffer some more, so it was difficult. And I'm not very comfortable with the bike. I'm not able to enter very fast in the corner, and I suffer. [It] was a difficult day."

Rossi never completed anything you could call a race run in the afternoon, but his best stint of laps - a run of five efforts beginning with a 1m40.2s and a string of high 1m39s - were around a second slower than Quartararo's run.

The SRT rider put in a set of nine laps over two runs in FP2 consistently in the 1m38.5s and 1m38.6s bracket on a used soft tyre. It was quicker than any of pacesetter Morbidelli's runs - the best of any rider who put together a meaningful stint - and yet Quartararo once again seemed flustered by a bike he maintains is more difficult to ride than last year's.

"I don't think it's like 2019, that we can say that the Yamaha is an easy bike," last year's Jerez poleman noted. "For me, the Yamaha this year is much more difficult to ride than last year. So, I think everybody needs to change a little bit this way of [thinking] that the Yamaha is an easy bike, the friendlier bike."

Quartararo admits FP1 was "one of the hardest practices of my career" after finding a bike that was all over the place - something that will have made his penalty of missing the first 20 minutes of the session after riding an illegal bike in a training day last month all the more frustrating.

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What is standing out about Quartararo with this new bike, and something he freely admits, is his general lack of MotoGP experience, which he says makes it "really easy to lose the way a little bit" with bike set-up.

Vinales spent the afternoon session trying various tyre combinations, so he never put in much of a longer run. But even with that, he feels he has gotten the bike into the ballpark.

"I had no issues with the tyre, actually I'm so happy with the tyres," he said. "Both combination, hard/medium or soft/soft combination is working well, so it's going to be a little bit tricky to decide which tyre we're going to use [for the race]. But anyway, with both compounds, I felt good, I felt the bike is working fantastic. And now we need to find a little bit more.

"We are not far, just one tenth maybe from the [best] rhythm, so we just need to find that tenth in all the track, especially in the early laps."

Those early laps, it seems, have taken on added significance for Vinales, who has stressed that qualifying will now be "key" if he is to have any hopes of winning on Sunday.

"I think it will be key for the race, we need to be in the front, we need to be in the front row," he added. "And we are starting quite good, especially with the new [holeshot] device. [It] will be so important to start in the front row: first, second and third, it doesn't matter, there in the front.

The Yamaha's obvious top speed disadvantage means getting mired in pack races will end Vinales' hopes. This was an issue on too many occasions last season

"Then will be very important also to push the first laps and try to open a gap. Especially because the first lap is always difficult fighting a lot and with the low top speed [it] is difficult to fight, for sure."

The Yamaha's obvious top speed disadvantage means getting mired in pack races will end Vinales' hopes. This was an issue on too many occasions last season.

Lacking horsepower to its rivals, Yamaha riders couldn't use speed to get ahead into the corners, and thus couldn't use the speed of the bike in the turns. And with 1.380s covering the timesheets on Friday, and the scorching temperatures expected on Sunday afternoon likely to require a steady pace in the first half of the race, there is a risk Yamaha could fall into the trap that snared it so often last year.

Saturday's FP4 will reveal the true picture of race pace, but Friday has shown that it's reasonable to expect Vinales and Quartararo will be among the frontrunners. Morbidelli remains a dark horse, while Rossi's weekend already looks like it's now a case of damage limitation.

However, it's clear that any advantage Yamaha has gained from Michelin's new rear tyre - and the visible steps the M1 has made over the winter - could well amount to naught unless its riders can qualify well and seize the lead off the line to negate that power deficit.