Andrea Dovizioso will not complete the 2022 MotoGP season. Today, Yamaha announced that the Italian had decided to end his career at Misano, his home race (Dovizioso is from Forlì, some 70 kilometers away).
Yamaha official test rider Cal Crutchlow will take Dovizioso’s place in the RNF WithU Yamaha team for the remainder of the 2022 season.
Is the 2022 Yamaha M1 a good MotoGP bike? It is a simple question with a simple answer: it depends. If Fabio Quartararo is riding it, it is good enough to have won two races, get on the podium in three others, and lead the 2022 MotoGP championship by 22 points.
But if anyone other than Fabio Quartararo is riding it, it is not quite so good. The best result by the trio of Franco Morbidelli, Andrea Dovizioso, and Darryn Binder is a seventh place, by Morbidelli at Mandalika. That seventh place is one of only two top tens for the other Yamahas, Darryn Binder being the other at the same race.
Together, Morbidelli, Dovizioso, and Binder have scored a grand total of 40 points. Fabio Quartararo has 147, over three times as many. And he has never finished behind any of the other Yamahas throughout the season.
In fact, the closest any other Yamaha rider has gotten to Quartararo is Franco Morbidelli’s eleventh place, two places behind his teammate, at the season opener at Qatar. Since then, Quartararo and the other Yamaha riders have been operating on different planets.
It was four years ago when we first saw Yamaha’s electric trials motorcycle, and the Yamaha TY-E was certainly an interesting entry into the space. That statement only becomes truer with version 2.0.
A such, the Yamaha TY-E 2.0 just officially debuted at the 49th Tokyo Motorcycle Show, and our initial wave of information shows a refined bike in Yamaha’s lineup.
Looking for stability at high speeds, and easier turning at low speeds, Yamaha has created a unique steering solution that the company is currently testing in a dirt bike application.
Officially named the Yamaha EPS Steering Support System, this lightweight electromagnetic setup doubles as an active steering damper and power steering assist.
We say it pretty much every Friday of a MotoGP weekend: it’s hard to draw conclusions from the first day of practice.
The first day of practice is usually spent trying out different setups and then assessing which tires are the best compromise between performance and durability for the race, so just glancing at the timesheets doesn’t tell you as much as you would like.
The first day of practice at Mandalika is even more complicated to unravel. First, there is the fact that it rained heavily on Friday morning, leaving the track damp at the start before drying out.
Then there’s the fact that nearly half the track has been resurfaced, the work finished not long before MotoGP arrived.
Finally, Michelin changed the construction of the rear tire from the one used at the test, in response to the heat at the track, the new surface, and the data from the test.
Yamaha Motor has announced that it is going to donate $700,000 towards humanitarian aid for Ukraine and its surrounding regions.
The 2021 Yamaha Tracer 9 GT is being recalled because the throttle grip may break, if used to pull the motorcycle up after a tip-over.
The recall only affects 2021 model year machines – built between February 15, 2021 and July 8, 2021 – with NHTSA quoting a recall population size of 453 motorcycles.
The lab coats at Yamaha have been hard at work, this time doing some engineering for their long-time partner, Toyota Motor Corporation.
Though not destined for two-wheels, Yamaha’s creation today is still pretty cool addition to our pages, as the work centers around a 5.0L V8 engine that is fueled entirely by hydrogen. The motor puts out 450hp and 400 lbs•ft of torque.
In 2021, the Yamaha M1 was the fastest motorcycle around a grand prix race track.
The evidence for that is clear: 2021 MotoGP world champion Fabio Quartararo. Quartararo had five race victories, more than anyone else, and five race fastest laps. He also had five pole positions, one less than Pecco Bagnaia.
So the bike was good, despite the chaos elsewhere making it look otherwise. Quartararo was the only constant in 2021.
Finishing in 4th place, it turns out that Yamaha’s end to the 2022 Dakar Rally was disappointing in more than one way, as the Japanese brand has made it clear that this year’s edition of the iconic off-road race will be its last as a factory two-wheeled effort.
Announcing that it will cease its Dakar Rally and other rally-raid motorcycle racing programs in the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship, Yamaha is effectively ending a 40-year involvement of racing motorcycles in the Dakar Rally.
The rumors were true, and the Yamaha Ténéré 700 family just got a little bigger, with the tuning brand adding its third variant of the popular ADV bike to its lineup.
As such, the 2022 Yamaha Ténéré 700 World Raid is an up-spec long-distance adventure machine with only one caveat – it is only coming to Europe.