Yamaha to race new gearbox in Misano

Reigning world champion Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi’s long wait to race Yamaha’s new seamless shift gearbox will come to an end this weekend in Misano.

Yamaha has finally confirmed after months of speculation that its factory duo will debut the seamless shift gearbox during a race weekend when practice kicks off at the San Marino track tomorrow.

Lorenzo and Rossi got their first chance to evaluate the new gearbox during a private test at the Brno track in the Czech Republic during the recent summer break.

Offering improved stability while upshifting, both Lorenzo and Rossi were immediately impressed with the new gearbox and repeated demands for Yamaha to make it available at the earliest opportunity.

Honda and Ducati have been using seamless shift gearbox technology since 2011 but Yamaha has adopted a conservative approach and is reluctant to bring out the new system until it is 100% reliable.

Speaking about the gearbox, nine-times world champion Rossi said: “We will try the new gearbox from tomorrow and I am so happy. It is very important and at Misano you use the gearbox a lot, so we hope it can be a good advantage to try and fight with the Honda.

“The gearbox helps the riding more than the real performance of the lap time. I don’t think the seamless gearbox is going to give us 0.5s a lap but I think it is a big help for the race distance to try and bring the bike more at the limit without any mistakes.”

Lorenzo said: “When I tried the new gearbox in Brno I was smiling so much because it was such a nice feeling. You don’t feel any loss of power for milliseconds and it is like you are riding an automatic scooter.

“The point when you feel the improvement the most is the point when you upshift with some lean angle. Normally with the old gearbox the bike moves but with this new gearbox it doesn’t move and you save more the tyres and you are more in control of the bike.”

Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis said the Japanese factory had not been tempted to wait until a post race test on Monday in Misano to give Rossi and Lorenzo a further chance to evaluate the new system.

Jarvis said: “With the pressure of these two (Rossi and Lorenzo) if it is ready for Monday it means it is ready for this weekend. This is very important for us.

“We have a deficit to Honda at the moment in points and we need to use whatever we have available to try and challenge them and make the best results we can in the last six races.”