Photo: motogp.com
The battle for the top positions in the 2014 MotoGP championship is definitely going to become much more interesting with the new regulations enforced by the FIM and Dorna.
And with Yamaha’s satellite team Tech3 also about to receive the same seamless gearboxes as the ones Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi are currently using, things will only get even better.
In a recent interview with motomatters, Yamaha Tech3 boss Herve Poncharal said that he was very confident that his riders are going to receive these new transmissions, even though he had received no insurance from any Yamaha officials. Still, even in the absence of an official statement from the parent-factory, Poncharal seems to know that both rookie Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith will get these gearboxes this season.
Besides riding factory-spec bikes, Yamaha Racing team and tech3 are also sharing one major sponsor, Monster Energy Drinks, and this should offer even more reasons to Yamaha to want to see their satellite team evolve. In 2013, Cal Crutchlow, now riding a Ducati, has made several memorable races aboard satellite-specced Yamaha machinery, so the prospects for the current season are really great.
Poncharal mentions that he cannot estimate how much a difference will the seamless gearboxes make for his motorcycles, but acknowledges that these new parts are a plus to any bike on the grid. At the time the factory Yamaha bikes were fitted with the new transmissions, the gear shifting was still much slower than what the gearboxes arch-rivals Honda offered. However, it was not long before Yamaha caught up and managed to reduce the shifting times drastically, being able to rival the Hondas on this front, too.
Now, seeing NGM Forward Racing’s Aleix Espargaro being extremely fast during the first test at Sepang earlier this month is definitely not the best thing for either Herve Poncharal or his team. The standing CRT (now Open-class) champion is riding a bike powered by Yamaha’s M1 leased engine loaded into a Forward Racing-commissioned FTR frame, and so far this combination proved to be a very lucrative one for the Spaniard.
The Frenchman says that such fast Open class riders are the key to avoiding MotoGP becoming an exclusive (and I daresay, dull) battle between Yamaha and Honda factory teams. Remains to be seen whether Poncharal retains his relaxed and very charismatic replies in case Aleix Espargaro makes a habit from beating Tech3 machinery.
In a recent interview with motomatters, Yamaha Tech3 boss Herve Poncharal said that he was very confident that his riders are going to receive these new transmissions, even though he had received no insurance from any Yamaha officials. Still, even in the absence of an official statement from the parent-factory, Poncharal seems to know that both rookie Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith will get these gearboxes this season.
Besides riding factory-spec bikes, Yamaha Racing team and tech3 are also sharing one major sponsor, Monster Energy Drinks, and this should offer even more reasons to Yamaha to want to see their satellite team evolve. In 2013, Cal Crutchlow, now riding a Ducati, has made several memorable races aboard satellite-specced Yamaha machinery, so the prospects for the current season are really great.
Poncharal mentions that he cannot estimate how much a difference will the seamless gearboxes make for his motorcycles, but acknowledges that these new parts are a plus to any bike on the grid. At the time the factory Yamaha bikes were fitted with the new transmissions, the gear shifting was still much slower than what the gearboxes arch-rivals Honda offered. However, it was not long before Yamaha caught up and managed to reduce the shifting times drastically, being able to rival the Hondas on this front, too.
Now, seeing NGM Forward Racing’s Aleix Espargaro being extremely fast during the first test at Sepang earlier this month is definitely not the best thing for either Herve Poncharal or his team. The standing CRT (now Open-class) champion is riding a bike powered by Yamaha’s M1 leased engine loaded into a Forward Racing-commissioned FTR frame, and so far this combination proved to be a very lucrative one for the Spaniard.
The Frenchman says that such fast Open class riders are the key to avoiding MotoGP becoming an exclusive (and I daresay, dull) battle between Yamaha and Honda factory teams. Remains to be seen whether Poncharal retains his relaxed and very charismatic replies in case Aleix Espargaro makes a habit from beating Tech3 machinery.
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