Yamaha's long-term MotoGP struggles reached a new low at the Austrian Grand Prix, with all four riders finishing outside the points and Fabio Quartararo the best of them in 17th. It was a weekend to forget for the Japanese manufacturer.
The Red Bull Ring has never been kind to Yamaha, who have not won there since the circuit returned to the calendar in 2016. But this year's performance was particularly dismal. For the first time this season, neither the factory team nor satellite outfit Pramac managed to score points.
What made it worse was that the four Yamahas posted lap times almost identical to last year's race, despite running a completely new bike with a V4 engine. Jack Miller even compared his 1m38s pace to "f***ing Baggers times"—a scathing indictment.
The root cause was Michelin's reinforced tyre brought to Austria, which exposed Yamaha's lack of grip, wheelspin on acceleration, and excessive tyre wear at the end of the race. Pramac Yamaha's Toprak Razgatlioglu was furious on the bike. "I couldn't accept having no grip at the start," he said. "This was the second-worst race of my life after Thailand."
Razgatlioglu added that the wheelspin wasn't solely down to the tyre. "On the straight, the bike just spins. Every corner exit, I feel spin. For the last six laps, I wondered how I would finish." Miller agreed, pointing to electronics issues. "We can't transfer weight smoothly, so any sharp input upsets the tyre and creates spin. Once it starts spinning, the laptime just gets slower," he explained.
The problem first appeared in Thailand, where Michelin also opted for the hard-cased tyre. However, both Razgatlioglu and Miller felt they couldn't accept the wheelspin on acceleration being purely a tyre issue. They demanded improvements from the team.
With this result, Yamaha sink further in the constructors' standings. They must find solutions quickly to salvage their season. The pressure is now on Yamaha to bounce back in the next round.
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