New Technical director Max Bartolini reveals his plan to rescue Yamaha in MotoGP

The MotoGP powerhouse Yamaha has seen a significant downfall in performance in the past few years. To improve all these situations, they hired Max Bartolini as the technical director of the team. After two decades at Ducati, Bartolini made a significant move to tackle Yamaha's challenges. 

When asked about the Yamaha M1's needs, Bartolini addressed whether a complete overhaul or minor adjustments suffice to rectify its weaknesses. In a media interaction with Sky Italia, he said, "I'm trying to understand how Yamaha works, to take advantage of the strong points that still exist, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.” 

“We're then trying to understand what can be done. It's clear that, as long as the engine architecture remains different, the motorbike is radically different. And therefore many concepts that were used at Ducati are very difficult to apply here.

“However, many others are common and can be transported - I am thinking of the aerodynamic balances or the way of work on the electronics, which can be updated and improved compared to how we are now.”

Max Bartolini explains what Yamaha needs!

Further speaking about his role and the needs of Yamaha Bartolini said that they have identified the issue. He said, “We have identified the areas where we can improve. A gap of 7-8 tenths takes time to recover and is spread across all areas.”

“We are working on it, we are producing some material and we are trying to bring together my experience, which is purely European, and that of Yamaha. The idea is to bring together the good of both working methods, to try to close the gap in a reasonable time”, he further added. 

In MotoGP, there's a notable shift where the traditionally dominant Japanese manufacturers, Yamaha and Honda, have lagged behind their European counterparts, namely Ducati, KTM, and Aprilia, despite the latter lacking the same extensive racing heritage.