Talk:Yamaha YZR-M1

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A few bits of this page need changing...

"came to the track in 2002, with Max Biaggi who had arrived from Honda onboard".

This is a bit misleading I think, Max moved to the works Yamaha team for the 1999 season, though he had ridden a privateer Kanemoto Honda NSR in 1998.

Here's a good page with some Biaggi info :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Biaggi

The bike had a podium finish in it's first race in the hands of Carlos Checa after he contested a drenched Japanese Grand Prix (Max crashed out at the Spoon Curve) but the race wins at Brno and Sepang were both on a dry track - if you remember, at Brno Rossi's rear tyre chunked while he was chasing Max down, he cleared off in Malaysia to leave Rossi, Barros and Ukawa to fight amongst themselves. Prior to that Yamaha had brought a new frame (their fourth IIRC) to Le Mans which Max used to get 3rd place, he then got more podiums at Italy (2nd), GBR (2nd) and GER (2nd). The Brno bike had another new frame and also a very different fairing, Biaggi was fastest all weekend.

"In the 2003 season Biaggi became almost nonchalant and open rather than discrete on his comments of how bad and useless the bike was, and if only he could be on a Honda, how everything could be OK"

Max Biaggi was on a Honda in 2003, the Sito Pons run, Camel Pramac bike with Ukawa as his team mate. Yamaha's riders that yeat were Alex Barros, Carlos Checa, Marco Melandri, Olivier Jacque and Shinya Nakano.

It might be worth pointing out that Rossi also won the BMW at the 2004 pre season IRTA test at Catalunya in spite of a strong Honda challenge.