The battle Yamaha's wayward son is fighting to be fast again in MotoGP

Few predictions made in the early winter months of 2020 came to pass in the year that unfolded. That is, unless you were one of those doomsday folks - in which case, good for you, I guess?

But its doubtful that anyone had on their scorecard that Franco Morbidelli on the ‘A-spec’ Petronas SRT-run Yamaha would end up being the Japanese marque’s most competitive rider in the truncated 2020 campaign, as he romped to three victories and missed the championship by just 13 points.

Don’t be fooled by that ‘A-spec’ designation. That’s just Yamaha speak for ‘year-old bike’. Morbidelli, 2017 Moto2 world champion and one of the true rags to riches stars of Valentino Rossi’s VR46 Riders’ Academy, already seemed like old news come 2020. His anonymous year on the SRT-liveried M1 in 2019 was cast further into the shadows by rookie sensation team-mate Fabio Quartararo scoring seven podiums and six pole positions.

At the start of 2020, Quartararo was promoted to factory-spec machinery at SRT and was already signed to the factory Yamaha squad for 2021 to replace Rossi. Morbidelli, meanwhile, had the 2020 bike he was supposed to ride that year taken from him at the eleventh hour and replaced with the 2019-spec model. The eggs were firmly in one basket.

And while Quartararo did win three times in 2020, he failed to score any other podiums and lacked consistency as his championship challenge spectacularly unravelled across the final six races – the Frenchman slipping from first to eighth in the points.

By the time Quartararo took his last win of the year in Barcelona, Morbidelli was 31 points adrift and was still observed as an outsider, having taken his maiden victory just two weeks prior at Misano. In hindsight, this was folly. Here was a Morbidelli who had been shaped by the ‘butt-kicking’ – as he told Autosport that September – from Quartararo in 2019 and was clearly delighting in being the outsider bet.

PLUS: How a 'butt-kicking' helped shape MotoGP's newest winner

His second win at Aragon came under immense pressure from Suzuki’s Alex Rins, while his Valencia victory was delivered after he firmly put Jack Miller in his place in a last-lap duel. Morbidelli had proved he could handle the pressure and get his elbows out.

Morbidelli missed out on the 2020 MotoGP title by just 13 points

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

It wouldn’t be enough to win him the championship, Yamaha’s early-season reliability ultimately costing him the 13 points he missed out to Joan Mir when his M1 broke while running in fourth at the Andalusian GP.

Questionably, it also wasn’t enough to convince Yamaha that he should be on a factory bike in 2021. Yamaha says the decision to allocate resources came too late in the day, and with 2021 returning to a more normal development cycle following COVID cutbacks, the ageing 2019 Yamaha creaked along in the early races of 2021. A third place at Jerez was the best he could muster, before a knee injury ruled him out from Assen through to Misano.

In his absence, Maverick Vinales had quit and was subsequently dropped with immediate effect from Yamaha’s line-up as that relationship deteriorated. Morbidelli then found himself with a fresh two-year Yamaha contract in his back pocket and an immediate promotion to the factory squad.

But the transition was not simple. Held back by his injury, Morbidelli scored just seven points in those final five races of 2021. But what proved to be really hampering him was the jump Yamaha had made in the time it since had developed the 2019 bike he previously rode. That has very much carried into 2022.

Morbidelli, the Italian himself concedes, is too “gentle” because his riding style is very much linked to the 2019 Yamaha he rode for two and a half years. Changing that isn’t an overnight process

“Yes,” he said exasperatedly when asked last month at Assen ahead of the summer break if he was surprised at how different the factory Yamaha is compared to his old bike. “Finally, yes, but the bike has changed towards the right directions let’s say. [It’s changed] towards increasing the performance, increasing the grip – everything. To extract that kind of potential, you need to be aggressive, you need to be tough. And I’m more gentle than tough in how I ride.”

While the DNA of the Yamaha remains unchanged, in that it is at its most effective when it is able to carry massive amounts of corner speed, the way to achieve that has seemingly changed in that evolutionary process from the 2019 bike to the current package.

This was something Quartararo noted last year in conversation with Autosport, stating he was riding the bike in a way that was “not really natural” to him – but was proving effective.

"I ride different than last year, it’s not really natural, but it works well,” he said in 2021. “I can feel the limit, I feel I can go really fast and for the moment I think that it’s going great. Normally I’m more of a rider to go super-fast in corner speed and right now I try to be a little bit more like an animal, braking super late, trying to ride a little bit on a different way.”

The latest Yamaha has required Morbidelli to adjust his riding style to get the most out of the M1

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

It is this ‘animal instinct’ that isn’t exactly natural to Morbidelli, nor RNF Racing’s Andrea Dovizioso, who is having a similarly tough year on the M1. Combined, the pair have scored just 35 between them. By contrast Quartararo, with his three wins, leads the standings on 172 points. That total of 35 would only be good enough for 18th in the standings, which is just one place higher than Morbidelli is currently situated.

Now the Yamaha needs a rider to be aggressive on entry and still release the brakes to carry that corner speed. Quartararo can do this because of the supreme confidence he has in the front-end of the bike. This was something noted by Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro at Assen, which he believes was behind the Frenchman’s uncharacteristic crash into him at Turn 5 during the Dutch GP.

Morbidelli, the Italian himself concedes, is too “gentle” because his riding style is very much linked to the 2019 Yamaha he rode for two and a half years. Changing that isn’t an overnight process, and is made harder by the fact time to do so is limited.

Five days of pre-season testing were permitted in 2022. Then, on race weekends, each of the first three 45-minute practice sessions generally have to have 10 minutes dedicated to time attacks to guarantee top 10 slots for Q2 in qualifying on the combined order. Throw in the ultra-competitive nature of modern MotoGP and time is something riders simply don’t have anymore.

So far in 2022, Morbidelli has scored a best result of seventh. It’s his only top 10 to date and it was circumstantial, because it came in the wet Indonesian GP.

“When the grip is low, my gentle riding style pays off,” he explains. “But then when the grip gets higher and we go on soft tyres, my gentle riding style doesn’t pay off. So, it’s important to change a bit the way of treating the bike. [I need to] treat the bike differently to extract the potential from it, which is high. It’s important to do that.”

For much of this year, Yamaha’s riders have been at opposite ends in terms of complaints about the bike. Morbidelli and Dovizioso are steadfast in their belief that the bike lacks rear mechanical grip. Quartararo is adamant that the rear grip problem is a direct consequence of the engine not being powerful enough for them to be stronger on corner-exit.

What has always been a striking feature of Morbidelli is his mindset. While at times he has tried to rebuff suggestions that he doesn’t get angry from time to time, he’s never been one to throw things around garages or lose his temper when times are tough. It’s this mental approach, which has carried him through some immensely tough personal times through the successes of his grand prix career, that seems to be prevailing in his current battle.

Morbidelli has finished in the points in seven of the 11 races this year, but lacked frontrunning pace

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“I understood one big thing, which is to be fast on this bike I need to change,” Morbidelli concedes. “I need to change, even though I know that my riding style pays off in some conditions and pays off with a certain type of chassis. I need to change because I ride this chassis, I ride this bike, I’m in this team. I will change. I will need to change.

“When you need to change this kind of thing, it’s tricky. You need to change many things, maybe also your personality, I don’t know. But you need to change a lot, but it’s going to be fun, I think. It’s going to be a fun process. Let’s see if I can do it.”

"Even though I know that my riding style pays off in some conditions and pays off with a certain type of chassis, I need to change because I ride this chassis, I ride this bike, I’m in this team" Franco Morbidelli

Morbidelli, mercifully, has time on his side. Despite the rider market being a fairly volatile place this year following Suzuki’s shock quit decision, and thoughts that Morbidelli’s seat may be under threat, Yamaha isn’t turning its back on the Italian. The second year of his contract will be honoured, and that means crucially he can approach the second half of this year able to focus solely on adapting to the bike.

Regardless of whether the strong Rossi ties have had a hand in this, a rider of Morbidelli’s calibre – a world champion at Moto2 level and thrice a grand prix winner in MotoGP’s most competitive era – deserves to be afforded some leeway to figure things out.

Not least because a fully realised Morbidelli ended up being Yamaha’s saving grace two years ago.

Morbidelli has time on his side to turn around his fortunes with Yamaha

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images