Yamaha secrecy no big issue, insists Jerry Burgess

Valentino Rossi’s legendary crew chief Jerry Burgess has brushed off Yamaha’s decision to ban data sharing between the Italian and team-mate Jorge Lorenzo in 2010.

Yamaha confirmed during last week’s two-day test session at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia that set-up information will no longer be exchanged between seven-times world champion Rossi and Spaniard Lorenzo.

The issue of information sharing between the two has always been a controversial subject, but Rossi insisted that the new policy would allow Lorenzo the opportunity to have more input into development of the factory YZR-M1 machine in the future.

And Aussie Burgess agrees with the 30-year-old and also believes that the ban on accessing each other’s data will have little impact in the garage this season.

Burgess told MCN: “I think Jorge has expressed a view that he’d like to develop the bike in his own direction.

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s very fast on Valentino’s bike, but I think this is a positive thing.

“The information will still go back to the engineering group and come back through that direction rather than us being linked on the server to their information so we can compare every session, which we don’t do anyway.

“I don’t think it will change anything at all. It’s a positive step for Jorge to perhaps stand more on his own but in all fairness I don’t know how much they looked at our information.

“Probably not at all because their setting was never the same. I’ve been in MotoGP for 30 years and I’ve never seen anybody benefit by looking at somebody else’s data.

“I think the rider to a degree wants to protect what they consider to be their own work, which is the setting up of their own bike. If it was a worry for Yamaha they wouldn’t do it and I think it is a good way for Jorge to stand up on his own.”

And Burgess joked: “Maybe the old boy (Rossi) might have to look more than he thought he did.”