As Valentino Rossi’s illustrious career nears its end, many have been vocal about ‘where it all went wrong’ for the nine-time world champion.
Rossi has struggled in recent years to maintain his dizzying heights, with his last MotoGP title coming in 2009 and his last race victory already five seasons back, in 2017. The Yamaha stalwart was second to his factory teammate Jorge Lorenzo in 2015’s championship fight, and for Rossi, that is where it all started to unravel.
Recent races have proved disastrous for all M1 riders in wet and mixed conditions - despite Fabio Quartararo clinching the 2021 MotoGP title last time out at Misano - with the Petronas rider explaining the standard ECU, and Yamaha’s original ‘in-house’ take on the change, lies at the heart of the issue.
“Our bike was fantastic until we [don’t] have the Yamaha electronics,” Rossi admitted.
“Because it’s a very Japanese project the M1, and all the engineers are from Japan and for me, we have always a lot of problem to use the Magneti Marelli at the maximum.
“The bike make a big step down when we change this. After, all the other manufacturers have a different approach, more like Formula 1, they take Italian engineers and everything, they open a lot, and they take a lot of different engineers from Europe, from Italy.
“But at the end, Yamaha more or less the people are always the same. So I think that under this point of view is difficult, is difficult to manage. Especially when we are in this mixed condition and wet condition, we lose a lot on that this point of view.”
