When Maverick Vinales won last month's MotoGP race at Phillip Island, it ended Yamaha's longest jinx in the top tier of grand prix motorcycle racing - one that had grown to a yawning stretch of 25 races.
That was very nearly followed up by another Yamaha win a week later at Sepang, as Valentino Rossi led Marc Marquez up until the moment he crashed with four laps to go. And it was a similar story at Valencia last weekend, when either Yamaha rider could have won in the wet if they hadn't crashed.
The way both Rossi and Vinales regained their competitiveness towards the end of a campaign that has been largely miserable for both of them begs the question: is Yamaha back on the path to becoming a force to be reckoned with in MotoGP once again?