How Yamaha's new MotoGP era can unchain Vinales

The 2021 MotoGP season is an historic one for Yamaha. It marks the Japanese manufacturer's 60th year in grand prix racing. It also marks the first of its years with Valentino Rossi where the veteran Italian won't appear in its factory line-up, having been moved aside to Petronas SRT (where he will be on a works contract) for to make way for Fabio Quartararo.

If there's ever a moment in recent times representing a true changing of the guard in the premier class, it's this.

Over the past few months, many onlookers have questioned what this will do to the factory Yamaha team. Not least when by the end of last season it seemed Yamaha had elected to partner together two of the paddock's most dejected figures, as problems with the inconsistency of the 2020 M1 package led to Maverick Vinales and Quartararo plummeting out of championship contention with an almighty thud.

From finishing 1-2 in the opening Jerez races, Quartararo leading home Vinales, neither rider scored a podium in the closing six rounds. So unimpressed with the situation was Vinales that he even admitted it was "impossible" to think about winning on the 2020 M1. But, as Yamaha's managing director Lin Jarvis said during the team's 2021 launch even on Monday, the bulk of the blame for this has to be shouldered by the marque.

"I think it was our responsibility by having various issues," he said when asked specifically about Quartararo's dramatic descent from championship leader to eighth in last year's points. "Obviously we had some technical issues with the bike that plagued us throughout the whole of last season. Then we had the consistency problem, so I think that we didn't give him the tools to be able to continue his consistent run. So, I think the responsibility is on us."

Yamaha's well-documented issues with its fragile (and as later transpired, illegal) Jerez engines didn't help matters, not least for Vinales, who had just two engines to do him for the whole season after the offending units were removed permanently from his allocation. This limited his running in practice sessions during the Aragon rounds, forcing him into exceeding his allocation in the first Valencia race - which incurred a pitlane start. A "disaster" was how Vinales branded that weekend.

But it all piled onto the shoulders of a blindingly quick rider who was coming apart at the seams as he tried desperately to figure out how to get his Yamaha to behave in such a way where performances like his Emilia Romagna Grand Prix win became commonplace.

"It's true that sometimes I can see that Maverick has the fire in his eyes, but it's easy for him to lose this fire," team boss Massimo Meregalli said on Monday. "And when I say that I feel and I think that I believe in him more than himself, it's because I can see he's approaching races and also how he can approach other races.

"After the previous years, it's been difficult because it was Valentino's team [and] my team. Now I think we have the opportunity to be one complete team and to go forward in the same direction" Maverick Vinales

"For sure, we can give our support to try to help him to be more balanced in his behaviour. And for sure the bike aspect is very fundamental for him, because when he sees he can't ride the bike as he'd like it's easy for him to lose the confidence."

Jarvis added: "I think Maverick has the same potential today as he had when he joined us, we just didn't make it happen for each other yet." When Vinales joined Yamaha from Suzuki in 2017, he won three of the opening five rounds and looked like a plug-in-and-play replacement for Jorge Lorenzo.

But Yamaha's form started to drop away, and it wouldn't be until Phillip Island in 2018 when Vinales won again. Ever since then, Vinales has felt as if he's been going up against a brick wall, whatever change is made to the bike never delivering what he needs.

This looked to have been fixed with the 2019 bike - which is essentially what Franco Morbidelli rode to runner-up spot in last year's championship - but Yamaha elected against basing the 2020 M1 on it, despite Vinales' insistence.

Quartararo, who rode the 2019 bike to seven podiums in his rookie year, echoed Vinales' comments. However, when asked for his opinion, Rossi often said he felt the 2020 and 2019 bikes were very similar. When you consider Vinales won twice in 2019, and Quartararo's aforementioned results, then compare them to Rossi's two early-season rostrums and worst championship placement since his Ducati nadir in 2011 (he finished lower in the points last year, but missed races due to COVID-19) you begin to see a problem.

Undoubtedly, there are Rossi fans out there who believe the factory Yamaha squad is going to die an unceremonious death without the presence of 'the great one'. But, intriguingly, Vinales feels the factory Yamaha squad's post-Rossi era could finally allow it to become one "complete" team again.

"I think for us it's very important the unity in the team, because for the last three years everyone was going it alone," Vinales said. "We were not all as one, and I think with Esteban [Garcia, crew chief], also Lin and Maio, what we are trying to do is take the 20 or 24 guys that are working inside the team to make it one team.

"And for me I think this is more important to keep the good mood, the good feeling. After the previous years, it's been difficult because it was Valentino's team [and] my team. Now I think we have the opportunity to be one complete team and to go forward in the same direction with both riders and I think to accomplish what we are able to do."

Not only at its race team has Yamaha elected to move on from a legend. At its test team, it's moved triple MotoGP world champion Jorge Lorenzo aside to bring in Cal Crutchlow. This is something which has enthused Vinales, as it means he no longer has to split his focus on setting up for the race during practice sessions while continually testing new parts. When Crutchlow spoke to Autosport in November about his new role, he insisted he was going to Yamaha to be a test rider and not simply a rider testing a bike as a means to a race return in 2022.

PLUS: Why Yamaha's MotoGP rivals should fear Crutchlow's return

Operationally, it seems Yamaha is now putting in place what it needs to provide Vinales with what he needs to flourish. And despite a freeze on engine development for 2021 due to COVID-19, Yamaha has been flatout developing the rest of the bike to correct the errors of the 2020 M1.

"Last year if you remember in Valencia, Franky with his engine, with a lot of mileage, he had extremely good acceleration," Meregalli said when Autosport asked about where Yamaha is improving the bike. "It's an area we are trying to improve again because with acceleration we can gain some power that maybe we miss at the end of the straight.

"For sure this is one area, we will introduce a new aero body in Qatar for the test. And then we work on the chassis, rear swingarm to try to improve the handling and this balance. Also, we are developing a new exhaust. So, we are not able to touch the core engine, but we are really working around it to try to improve the performance of the bike."

Meregalli also revealed Yamaha's engineers back at its Iwata base in Japan "don't remember the last time they've been able to prepare so many parts". This should hopefully make Meregalli's task of keeping Vinales calm easier by providing him with the "easy-to-adapt" bike the Italian believes his rider needs - in particular to improve his early-race pace, which has so often been the killer of his hopes on a race weekend since he joined Yamaha.

"It means everything that the team I have has my back, is pushing me, supporting me, this is what I need actually to give all my potential to take out all my talent" Maverick Vinales

All of this lends itself to perhaps the key point in which Yamaha is trying to extract the potential from Vinales it knows he possesses. After five years, it hasn't given up on him. It has made some significant personnel changes in recent years to try and help Vinales, most notably replacing crew chief Ramon Forcada (formerly Lorenzo's crew chief, and currently Morbidelli's) for Esteban Garcia (who worked with Vinales during his early grand prix days) in 2019. The fact it is always willing to keep adapting to help Vinales is a clear show of faith, the significance of which isn't lost on the Spaniard.

"It means everything," he said. "For sure they can blame me, like sometimes I blame Yamaha. We can do because we are not perfect every race and every day. For me it means everything that the team I have has my back, is pushing me, supporting me, this is what I need actually to give all my potential to take out all my talent."

Despite his low points, Vinales has always been adamant he believes in the Yamaha project. When Ducati came snooping about 2021, Yamaha put a contract on the table last winter and Vinales duly signed. Say what you like about Yamaha or Vinales, it's clearly a partnership both are willing to make work.

Quartararo's arrival to the factory squad could be seen as a major threat to Vinales; if he can't beat his younger team-mate, his Yamaha future all of sudden looks less secure beyond 2022. And while both believe it's a relationship which can be beneficial to the development of the bike, needle surely will emerge as they start to go toe-to-toe on track.

But with the effort both Yamaha and Vinales have made over the winter, the battle between the pair won't be as one-sided as perhaps many are anticipating.