Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi is hoping the factory’s full seamless-shift gearbox will be ready to use this season and says that he and team-mate Jorge Lorenzo are pushing hard for it to appear.

The YZR-M1 only has seamless changes going up through the gearbox while using a conventional setup to shift back down and Rossi believes that a full system would allow both riders to get closer to Marc Marquez’ RC213V.

“Our gearbox work very well when you accelerate but in the braking when you shift down, we don’t have the seamless system, and is not ready. We push a lot for have the seamless in braking like Honda because me and Jorge both think we can improve a lot. We both hope to use the system. I think this year may be difficult but possible,” said Rossi, speaking at the track.

Rossi went on to talk about the big step forward Yamaha’s engineers have made with the engine, saying that in terms of acceleration, the M1 is now comparable with the Honda V4 and they are only losing a little on outright top end.

“For me, Yamaha work very strong and achieve good result for acceleration. Now, our engine is very fast, we are very close to Honda in acceleration. Sometimes, the Honda have some kilometre more on the straight, two or three, but is not like the past.”

“Yamaha did a very good step with the gearbox because in the last years, Honda had an advantage, now is better so is true that on the straight, our bike is very fast and also we were worried about consumption and number of engines, but the engineers make a very good job. The engines are also very powerful for a lot of kilometres.”