Rossi pushing for engine boost

Yamaha have stuck to their marketing guns with a four-cylinder engine since the four stroke era started in 2002, and the only V4 road bike they make is the V-Max. V4 engines are narrower and with better cooling, but Yamaha's signature is an in-line four.

When Rossi jumped ship to Yamaha in 2004, a variety of engines were thrown at him when he rode the bike first in Malaysia. Without knowing their full make-up, Rossi chose the engine the Japanese engineers were hoping he would have chosen to take development forward with.

Going into 2008, it now seems they are back at that point.

"I want to try another time like this," said Rossi. "We need to improve our engine character in acceleration, following two or three different ways with the engine.

"The electronics are the other points to improve. Our electronics are not so bad, but if we compare with Ducati we are three or four steps below so we have to improve a lot.

"We have some good (electronics) engineers, Italian also, together with the Japanese that already work for some new parts as soon as possible."

Rossi had overheating problems with his Yamaha both last year in Laguna and Valencia, while this year in Germany he also had problems.

"Another point of our bike is when it is very hot. Our engineers try, already, to work to have a better radiator system," Rossi added.

The current radiator surface area is the same as the 990cc bike, but has been hampered through the warmer working temperatures of the higher-revving 800cc engines.

Rossi and his crew did not go testing last January at Phillip Island because the warm temperatures there are so different to the considerably cooler conditions when the actual race takes place in September in 2006 or October as it did this year. Rossi has dominated the race there in recent years, leading Yamaha to take a break.