Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Yamaha Factory Racing claim not to be concerned by their shortage of remaining new engines for the rest of the 2013 season.

Whereas Repsol Honda Team duo Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez are on their second engines of the campaign, Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi – as well as Cal Crutchlow on the satellite Monster Yamaha Tech 3 machine – are now using their fourth of five powerplants for the championship season.

"You are right," Massimo Meregalli, Team Director for Yamaha Factory Racing, confirmed to motogp.com about the numbers of engines used thus far. "We have had one problem with each rider, so for safety reasons our engineers decided to seal the fourth engine and keep the second one as a spare; just because they first of all have to understand what has happened and for us to be able to solve it as soon as possible."

With the second engines of both Lorenzo and Rossi having suffered issues, the pair will now be toggling between their first, third and fourth units before Yamaha elects to use the fifth for the first time. When asked when the fifth will be put into action, Meregalli replied:

"We don’t know but, anyway, the durability is pretty good and our engineers are pretty sure that - as long as nothing happens such as an accident, like at Assen last year - we should finish the championship with five engines."

Six races into the 2013 season, reigning world champion Lorenzo sits seven points behind Honda’s Dani Pedrosa atop the Riders’ Championship. Yamaha is also placed second to their rivals in the constructors’ and teams’ standings.