The leap of faith Yamaha made following a tough 2016 has had instant benefits for the 2017 season, with Yamaha having usurped Honda and all the others as ‘best of the rest’ behind Kawasaki and Ducati. Yamaha undertook a complete redesign of all the allowable race additions to their standard bike, in particular the 30 per cent increase in oil cooling capability, meaning the team can now extract the full performance from its engine, even in hot conditions.
