The rookie making Yamaha rethink its MotoGP strategy

Fabio Quartararo's explosive arrival onto the MotoGP scene has undoubtedly had a ripple effect on the championship, but also within Yamaha itself.

The sheer, raw pace that has made the Petronas youngster into the revelation of the season has shaken up the natural order of things at the Japanese factory, which finds itself in a not-altogether-comfortable situation as a result.

At just 20 years of age, Quartararo has proven to be fast and consistent in all conditions, backing up his potential with three pole positions and three podiums already in his rookie season.

Despite being the only Yamaha rider running a slightly inferior spec machine, the kid from Cannes couldn't care less about what any other rider has underneath him - preferring to focus on getting the best out of the material given to him. And this straightforward approach to his racing is having more of an influence than might initially appear to be the case.

If there is one thing the majority of the paddock can agree on, it's that the young Frenchman is a contender to win one of the seven races remaining this season. If he can do it, Quartararo would not only become one of the youngest ever riders to make the top step of the podium in the premier class but he would also end a run lasting just shy of two decades since the last victory for a satellite Yamaha in MotoGP.

Since Garry McCoy's success at Valencia in 2000 - which was before the start of the modern four-stroke era - Yamaha has won 112 races but all of them have been by factory riders: Valentino Rossi (56), Jorge Lorenzo (44), Max Biaggi (six), Maverick Vinales (five) and Ben Spies (one).

It's a striking statistic, especially when you consider that during those nigh-on 20 years Honda has celebrated 38 wins with satellite machinery, spread across nine riders: Rossi (12), Sete Gibernau (eight), Marco Melandri (five), Cal Crutchlow (pictured above, three), Alex Barros (three), Biaggi (three), Makoto Tamada (two), Jack Miller and Toni Elias (one each).

The contrast is so stark that it warrants a little further investigation to try to shed further light on it.

Clearly, the most qualified people to talk about it are Yamaha and the bosses of its two most recent satellite clients: Tech3, which ended a two-decade relationship last season and switched to KTM, and the current package made up of Petronas and the Sepang Circuit (SIC), which took over from the French outfit as Yamaha's second team.

Tech3 boss Herve Poncharal thinks Yamaha always saw his team as more of a hindrance than a help in terms of accelerating development of the bike

"It is an incredible stat," Lin Jarvis, Yamaha's Team Principal told Autosport. "Being honest, I can't think of a good reason that justifies the comparison with Honda.

"The choice of material available to the satellite teams always depends on the relationship with the client, and the budget. This year the satellite bikes are more similar to the factory bikes because Petronas are making a bigger investment than Tech3. Different teams have different objectives."

Jarvis's comments are enough to draw the logical conclusion that it all comes down to a question of money, an approach that is shared by Wilco Zeelenberg, team manager of the Petronas squad.

"Our intention is to break this tendency [of Yamaha satellite underperformance]," he says. "This year is the first time Yamaha have three factory bikes on the grid since the introduction of four-strokes.

"How many years did [Tech3's Herve] Poncharal run the Yamaha satellite team for? His demands were always the same: to have affordable motorcycles. That's what he achieved.

"Us, on the other hand, we made it clear that we wanted the best material possible. Budget does come into it, because clearly our way is a more expensive way."

But Tech3's head honcho deflects from the financial side of the argument by insisting it was more to do with the factory's own strategy.

Several within Yamaha see the dependence on Rossi as an obstacle to future success. It's a good time for Yamaha to finally take the possibilities of a satellite team as seriously as its main rivals

According to Poncharal, Yamaha always saw his team as more of a hindrance than a help in terms of accelerating development of the bike. He says the crisis that Yamaha has been embroiled in for the last three seasons has forced the management to change its view of what a satellite team should be - something he believes the competition worked out long before Yamaha.

"Honda came to the conclusion a long time ago that offering their satellite teams the best possible material available allowed them to develop their bike more quickly," Poncharal tells Autosport.

"Even though [Marc] Marquez is the undisputed leader of the Honda project, the fact that they count on other riders also helps, because he can't test all of the new material on his own. Meanwhile at Yamaha, I think they saw their satellite teams as baggage, until we decided to change manufacturer."

Even though some of the parties (Yamaha and Petronas) share a different perspective to others (Tech3), one thing they agree on is the role that signing Rossi back in 2004 played in the fortunes of the factory.

'The Doctor' changed the course of history for a manufacturer that had been forced to bow down under the dictatorship of Honda (which won nine out of 10 championships between 1994 and '03).

But the arrival of Rossi - and the appointment of Masao Furusawa as lead engineer - focused all of Yamaha's efforts on one side of the garage. The immediate success of Rossi's first championship in 2004 convinced Yamaha that this strategy was the right one, especially given the commercial pull of such a global motorcycling icon.

"In 2004, Vale was the only rider who could challenge for the title on a Yamaha, so every effort was focused on him," says Poncharal. "That proved to be a positive tactic and the numbers back it up, but now it is obsolete and they need to make a change."

And this point of view is shared by several voices within Yamaha, who see the dependence on their flagbearer - who at 40 years of age has not won a race for two years - as an obstacle to their future success. It's a good time for Yamaha to finally take the possibilities of a satellite team as seriously as its main rivals.