MotoGP Features

In March last year Alex Barros was just about hanging onto his grand prix status.

Yamaha's YZR-M1 broke cover in Europe last week when riders Max Biaggi, John Kocinski, Norihiko Fujiwara and Kyoji Namba spent three days at the Italian circuit of Mugello, running side-by-side tests with the factory's current Marlboro Yamaha Team YZR500 GP bikes.

I'm hardly the strongest bloke in the world, but my power-to-weight ratio is actually pretty good as living in the country and moving great lumps of timber around the place for winter's logs - usually during the height of the summer - keeps me pretty well