Defending champ and current MotoGP points leader Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) beat the lap record at Misano today to top the time sheets at the end of the 2-day official test. More importantly for Quartararo, he tested a new engine developed for next year (Yamaha cannot change their engine this year) and found significant improvements in acceleration and top speed. Quartararo stated that this is the first iteration of the 2023 engine, and that Yamaha engineers believe they can find even more power before the 2023 races start. Already, Quartararo’s top speed was competitive with the Ducatis at this test.
Marc Marquez returned to ride his MotoGP Honda at this test after 4 months recovering from a 4th surgery on his right arm. Impressively, he logged 100 laps over the 2 days and ended 13th quickest. He has left open the possibility he will race at Aragon 2 weeks from now.
Here are the combined times from the 2 days of testing at Misano.
Is there a reason why there are no more comments, or is it just that VLJ said all there is to say?
He certainly seems to have his doubts about Yamaha. I’m rather surprised that Yamaha doesn’t currently have faster engine. The current one is obviously competitive. It is winning the championship.
One has to remember that Yamaha designed nearly all of the popular engines, like the 2JZ, coming from Toyota and even to occasional engine from GM and Ford. Their 250 two stroke is decades old and is still well loved. Why they should have an engine in there GP bike that is considered slow and the reliability issues they had in the past is really strange. It’s almost like they are kind of phoning it in and treating GP like the ad campaign that it really is. Like the full weight of their engineering department is not on focused on GP. And well, maybe it isn’t. The four stroke dirt bikes are still undergoing a lot of development in a very competitive field, and they are a product that is actually sold to make money.
Blowing a wad on GP made sense back when all the Japanese manufacturers 600 sport bikes were top sellers. But that ship sailed, hit an ice berg, and sunk. Suzuki wrote something on the wall.
That bike is only competitive under Quartararo, and even he says there are too many places they can’t be competitive because the bike is underpowered. The guy does an impressive job of riding the ragged edge to salvage points in those cases. In the recent tests, the 2023 Yamaha platform seemed to be quite potent without totally losing its handling hallmarks, so it will interesting to see if that proves to be true at multiple circuits during a race.
Encouraging news from Yamaha on the engine front, yet any jump-up-and-down-with-excitement conclusions from this initial test must be tempered with a healthy dose of reality.
Namely…
-Fabio’s fastest top speed was the result of a tow he received from a Ducati. He wasn’t able to slipstream that Ducati, while that Ducati was able to slipstream him.
-Despite the improvement, his bike still wasn’t as fast as the Ducati.
-As MotoGP circuits go, Misano is a very short, technical track. Let’s see how these top speeds pan out at Mugello, Spielberg, and other tracks where much longer straights and the need for extended stretches of hard acceleration truly put the motors and aero packages to the test.
-No way of knowing yet whether this new motor will be sufficiently reliable and/or durable.
-No way of knowing yet whether this new motor will put down smooth, tractable power from circuit to circuit, in the wet or dry.
-No way of knowing yet whether this new motor will devour tires more severely than the current motor does.
That being said, Fabio made no bones about it, following the last round of pre-season tests: the motor was no faster, the bike had made no real improvements, and he was disappointed in Yamaha. Today, he and Frankie both stated that this 2023 motor accelerates noticeably harder, and has a higher, more competitive top speed. Fabio in particular sounded far more upbeat and enthusiastic about the project than he has in a very long time.
Clearly, at least some real progress has been made this time by Yamaha.
On the other major front, Marc is obviously going to have the Honda slotted back among the leaders, in very short order. No one can say whether he will ever return to his previous heights, which seems highly unlikely, yet it’s already quite evident that he will smoke the other Honda riders on his way to forcing the Repsol bike back into the discussion each week. He’s not going to be riding around in tenth place, fifteen seconds off the lead pack; not for long, anyway. There may be a bit of that over the course of these remaining few rounds of the 2022 season, but come the 2023 season, barring further injury to that arm and shoulder, he will be a consistent top-five threat.
He may prove to be a lot more than that. With his competitive fire, and a newly healthy chicken wing, I would not feel comfortable betting against that guy.
#93 first time riding in months and already fastest Honda rider.
I thought Dovisioso retired Sunday?
Strangely enough, he was testing helmets for Alpine Star…
Fabio is the real deal… I’m glad Yamaha is finally taking this seriously. I feel like he is the only Marc Marquezian talent on the grid. Pecco, perhaps Enea and even Maverick have the raw speed, but there is some ingredient that those guys lack thus far to convince me they can play at the same level. I don’t see the Ducatis looking so dominant with Fabio on a faster Yamaha and even a 95% Marc back in action.