Why Yamaha is still in the MotoGP doldrums

After a chastening 2017 MotoGP season, the stakes couldn't have been much higher for Yamaha in winter testing, with just nine days of on-track running for the team to ensure the '18 version of its M1 didn't share the same characteristics as its ill-fated predecessor.

Despite an encouraging start at Sepang at the end of January, by the time Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales wrapped up three days of testing at the all-new Buriram circuit in Thailand in February it looked for all the world as if the two works Yamaha riders were suffering from the exact same issues that blighted their campaign in 2017.

Vinales even went so far as to describe the Buriram test as the "worst" of his tenure at Yamaha, while Rossi declared the team would be "relying on fate" for the early rounds of the year because a cure to his issues was potentially "months" off.

What made Rossi's and Vinales' struggles all the more painful was the fact that Tech3 rider Johann Zarco, equipped with a 2016 M1 after rejecting the '17 variant, was suffering no such troubles, in essence continuing where he left off at the tail end of a stunning rookie campaign.

Fast-forward to the final test of the winter in Qatar, where the headline laptimes - Vinales fastest on day one, Rossi a close second to Zarco on the last day - disguised a broader feeling of pessimism on both sides of the works Yamaha pit, particularly regarding long-run pace.

"We don't know what will happen during the race," Rossi said on the final day. "Until half-race [distance] I am strong but after we have another 10 laps that we have to understand. Usually last year we suffered [there] and for me it is the place where we are more in trouble."

Vinales, fifth-fastest after a surge up the leaderboard in the final hour, added: "I'm not riding at 100%. We got lost and I could not push. That means I have room for improvement and especially the bike has room for improvement. We are far from the level we can reach."

"I requested the bike I rode the first time I rode the Yamaha It was a totally different feeling than now" Maverick Vinales

When analysing Yamaha's issues, it's important to remember that the M1 is, for all intents and purposes, still Jorge Lorenzo's bike - especially as the 2018 chassis is based upon the '16 frame, the final bike Lorenzo rode for the team before departing for Ducati.

That means the best way to extract performance from it is to ride it like Lorenzo did, with fast, sweeping arcs and maintaining high apex speed in the corners. Zarco quickly realised this, and has focused on adapting his own riding style to suit the machinery at his disposal.

Rossi and Vinales believe the solution to their woes must come not from themselves but from the team. And to complicate matters further for Yamaha, both riders seem to want different things.

Rossi in particular spent much of the winter pinpointing the M1's electronics as its big weakness, indicating that the latest version of the Yamaha engine may be overwhelming the chassis with too much horsepower, an issue similar to that faced by Honda in recent years.

Straightline speed (or rather, a lack of it) was one of the main things the maligned 2017 machine was designed to address, although in its efforts to do so Yamaha only succeeded in diluting the characteristics that had made the bike so successful.

And you only need look at Zarco's performance in Qatar to realise that upping a bike's power doesn't necessarily translate to an improved laptime.

As well as the 2016 chassis, Zarco is also running a '16-spec engine that is limited to around 800rpm lower than the works bikes. Yet in Qatar, Zarco, despite having a best straightline speed three km/h slower, still ended up almost half a second faster than Vinales.

"He is young and he wants to try to always stay in front. But modern MotoGP has changed very much. You have also to suffer" Valentino Rossi on Maverick Vinales

While an electronics fix is Rossi's preferred solution, the actual issue itself remains much the same as last year - a lack of traction, which in turn chews up the tyre and leads to a major drop-off in pace over a race distance.

That's what caused the Italian veteran to declare in Qatar that "more or less we are on the same level" as 2017, adding: "We have to work a lot on the electronics, because on acceleration we suffer. It's difficult, especially with the used tyre, the exit from the corner."

In Vinales' side of the garage, the root of the problem is harder to pin down, and could even be related to the Spaniard's mentality, which is starting to resemble that of the man he replaced at Yamaha at the start of last year: Lorenzo.

While Lorenzo was untouchable on his day, he equally had a propensity to get worked up about certain things and to struggle to stay calm when things were going awry, traits that Vinales has started to exhibit. But who can blame him, given how young he is and how successful the opening months of his Yamaha career were?

"He is young and he wants to try to always stay in front," Rossi said of his 23-year-old team-mate's current state of mind. "But the modern MotoGP has changed very much, for me because the limit with the tyre is very, very close for everybody. So you have also to suffer."

Vinales' comments in Thailand were telling in this regard. On the second day of the Buriram test, he claimed to have discovered the problem with the 2018 M1, saying that Yamaha had made power delivery too smooth and that this was to blame for a lack of acceleration.

This proclamation was said to have prompted incredulity within the team - and sure enough, the next day, Vinales suffered "the same problem as always". He admitted the so-called solution the previous day was likely just down to him using a new tyre, before making an impassioned plea for Yamaha to give him back "his" bike.

"I requested the bike I rode the first time I rode the Yamaha," he said. "This is my request: to have this feeling when I just jumped on the Yamaha. It was a totally different feeling than now."

The trouble is for Vinales, those sensations he had in last year's pre-season and early races (feels like a long time ago since he dominated in Argentina and appeared to be strolling inexorably towards a maiden title, doesn't it?) will be all but impossible to replicate now.

That's partly down to the tyres - his form suffered a noticeable dip when the Michelin front was stiffened last year post-Le Mans after a rider vote - and partly down to the fact that the early-2017 frame has long been consigned to the dustbin, thanks in no small part to Rossi pushing Yamaha to return to a more '16-like concept.

One of the most interesting revelations of the off-season was Yamaha team director Massimo Meregalli admitting that Rossi's feedback is more valuable than Vinales'. For evidence, you only have to look back to the first half of last year to how Vinales allowed the development process to get away from him, despite being ahead in the points.

Vinales went into this season vowing not to make the same mistake, but the trouble is he doesn't seem to know what he wants - besides, perhaps, a time machine to take him back to March 2017. Small wonder, then, that the team is more inclined to listen to Rossi's suggestions when it comes to figuring out how to close the gap to Honda and Ducati.

The big question is this: can the situation at Yamaha be salvaged in time for either Rossi or Vinales to fight for the title? That partly depends on how pre-season favourites Marc Marquez and Andrea Dovizioso start their seasons, and this weekend's curtain-raiser in Qatar won't provide a definitive answer either way.

The floodlit Losail track is a historically poor indicator of how the rest of the season will play out, and it's traditionally been a happy hunting ground for Yamaha. That's not to say Rossi or Vinales will win - testing suggested Dovizioso's Ducati will be hard to beat - but cool temperatures last year masked the M1's issues, and this year is likely to be a similar story.

Likewise Argentina's Termas de Rio Hondo is a high-grip surface, being a relatively new track, and Marquez's near-invincibility at Austin makes conclusions there tricky to draw too. It might be that round four at Jerez in early May provides the first clear indicator of whether the Yamaha men are in with a shout.

That said, modern MotoGP is such that making any prediction is tough. Testing form appeared to vary significantly from day to day, let alone from track to track. All that can be said with any certainty is that things, no matter how well or badly they seem to be going, can turn around very quickly. Just ask Vinales...