Rossi and Lorenzo hope to race 2015 Yamaha chassis this season

Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo have said they would both like to race a new 2015-spec Yamaha YZR-M1 chassis in the final phase of the current campaign.

Italian Rossi and double MotoGP world champion Lorenzo were both impressed with the new frame when they tested it during a one-day post race session at the Brno track earlier this week.

The revised chassis offers more stability on braking and corner entry, but it is unlikely that Yamaha will make the 2015 frame available ahead of schedule.
That hasn’t stopped Rossi and Lorenzo from declaring their desire to race the frame in the latter part of the 2014 world championship.

Rossi said: “Why not? But I don’t know if it is possible because I didn’t speak to Yamaha about this. But if it is possible then yes I would like to race it this year. We improved on the braking and entry with the new chassis and it is more stable. But my feeling is that we lose a little bit in acceleration, so we need to find the right balance. We have to look at the data but Jorge was also very fast with the new bike and he liked it.”

Spaniard Lorenzo did like the new prototype 2015 YZR-M1, which also featured a new engine that had slightly more horsepower.

Lorenzo, who is bidding for a fourth British GP win in the last five years next weekend, confirmed he had already asked Yamaha technical staff about the possibility of racing the frame in the final seven races of 2014.

He admitted it was unlikely and said: “We tried a new chassis for 2015 and it seems a little bit better in the entry of the corner it is absorbs the bumps better and I can go faster. But unfortunately it is not going to be possible to use this year. They told me it was going to be difficult. Not impossible but they still have to check.  Probably I would race the 2015 frame this year if I could and I hope Yamaha can take some of the benefit of this chassis into the bike for this year.”