Yamaha clears up MotoGP engine valve saga – MotoGP

Yamaha has made it clear that the valves on its MotoGP Grand Prix engines in Spain have not been replaced with non-homologated ones and stated that it was never intended to change them in any of its units.

The Japanese brand was found to have operated illegal engines in all four machines during the GP weekend in Spain in July. The FIM investigation focused on the use of valves that were not submitted with the pre-season homologated sample engine.

The punishment for losing design and team championship points was due to the Manufacturers’ Association failing to obtain permission to unseal the engines and change valves – which it wanted to do after two engine failures on the first lap of Jerez.

However, Yamaha has now stated that the problem has arisen with ordering its parts for the 2020 season and it has been found that the valve supplier they are using would no longer make this part.

Yamaha was looking for a new supplier with an identical design that the Japanese brand believed could do under the regulations.

The eight engines with which Yamaha started the Spanish GP and which were classified as illegal were equipped with valves from the second supplier and not with valves submitted for homologation by the other supplier.

Yamaha’s intention was to use the rest of the existing valve inventory as well as that of the secondary supplier for the entire season.

However, these plans were discarded when the Jerez engines, which operate the non-homologated valves, developed technical problems. Yamaha then asked the MSMA to unseal their engines in order to replace them with the homologated valves.

Yamaha eventually withdrew its request when it did not receive “hard evidence” from the supplier that there was a problem in the manufacturing process, but when the brand disclosed that it had valves from different suppliers, it set off alarm bells at the MSMA finally to his sanction.

“This year we started with the actually homologated valves in our sample engine, which we use as a benchmark in the event of a protest against the valves of our one supplier,” Yamaha CEO Lin Jarvis told MotoGP’s World Feed.

“And all eight engines in the first race were equipped with valves from the other supplier.

“Yamaha’s intent was never to gain a performance advantage, but we planned to use the remaining inventory from supplier one and then from supplier two in the second half of the year.

“At the beginning of the season, however, we had this bug with these valves. At that moment we looked closely at the valve supplier for the first eight engines and discovered that they had a technical problem.

“At that moment we did our research and went to MSMA. We have said quite frankly that we would like to switch from these valves that come from this supplier and are defective to the other valves that we have from the other supplier. ”

“And from that moment the red lights went on: ‘Wow, you have valves from two different suppliers, how is that possible, they are different, etc.’

“We never changed the valves in these engines. So this is something important that people get wrong. We never changed the valves in those first engines, in fact we didn’t use them anymore. ”

According to Jarvis, Yamaha urged an independent analysis of the valves and while the design and performance of the valves are identical to the homologated batch, Yamaha cannot say that the valves are 100% identical due to “nuances” in the material.

He also insists that the debacle was a “misunderstanding within Yamaha Japan”.

That saga, however, has had an impact on all Yamaha riders since Jerez lost two engines from their allocation of five – with Maverick Vinales actually losing three due to a mechanical problem.

As a result, Yamaha was forced to exceed its allocation for the year for the European GP and take a sixth place, leaving Vinales stepping down from a pit-start start and severely hurting his championship hopes.

The riders were able to evade the punishment, which is included in the MotoGP paddock question. But Jarvis believes the drivers are the “innocent party” in all of this.

“Fortunately, the drivers were not punished, which I think is fair as there was no performance advantage and they really are the innocent party in this whole thing.”