Evolution not revolution pays off for Yamaha

After being hammered by Honda during the 2014 MotoGP season, Yamaha resisted the temptation to make radical changes to its YZR-M1.

Instead, Yamaha Motor Racing managing director Lin Jarvis explained that process of evolution laid the groundwork for this year's triple crown of the MotoGP Riders', Teams' and Constructors' titles.

The identity of the Riders' champion is still to be decided, but is guaranteed to be either Valentino Rossi or team-mate Jorge Lorenzo. At Phillip Island, Crash.net asked Jarvis how closely the multiple world champions had worked on development of this year's all-conquering bike.

"I would say that Jorge and Vale working alongside each other is probably a better description than working together," Jarvis explained. "They work alongside each other, together with the engineers, and the engineers are able to listen to these two incredible riders - with slightly different riding styles - and make progress step-by-step-by-step.

"This [success] started midway through last season, after we were destroyed by Marc Marquez in the first ten races. Then our engineers had to improve a lot the bike and we already did it in the second half of last year.

"Fortunately our evolution rather than revolution approach has paid off this year because Honda has clearly developed a bike that is more difficult to ride than ours. There is no question. So that's to our advantage as well.

"This is all part of the game: It's not just a rider sport, it's also a sport where the team cannot make errors and the manufacturer has to develop a great bike. Today, as you know, we won the constructors' title. Our second title of the year.

"So that's done and the riders' title is guaranteed, so it's been a great year and the only thing that remains is to find out if it'll be 46 or 99."

Rossi is eleven points ahead of Lorenzo with two rounds, and 50 points, remaining.