2020 was a season of 'missed opportunities' for Yamaha, which won more than twice the number of races of any other manufacturer but still lost out 🐭on the MotoGP riders', constructors' and teams' titles.

The constructors' crown was snatched away by a late 50-point pꦅenalty for breaking the engine homologation rules, due to the use of two different valve suppliers at the start of the year (teams' points were also docked, bღut didn't change the outcome).

The brea🍨ch had emerged as Yamaha negotiated with its rivals o🔥ver a batch of faulty valves discovered at the opening Jerez rounds, where a series of technical failures soured a pair of one-two finishes by Fabio Quartararo and Maverick Vinales.

This "Achilles' heel" would haunt Yamaha and its riders for the rest of the season, the faulty engines being parked and forcing 📖extra milage on the remaining powerplants, which had to be detuned as a result.

Yet the factory still managed to win 7 of 14 races (KTM was next best with three) and iౠt was inconsistent form, rather than peak engine performance, that co🐲st Yamaha the riders' title.

After their perfect start to the season, see-sawing fortunes for Quartararo and Vinales (the only Yamaha rider to require an extra engine) saw them slip to eighth and sixth re💜𒊎spectively in the final standings.

Adding to their fru🅠stration, Franco Morbidelli made a late-season charge on the lower A-Spec machine (based closely on the 2019 bike) not only matching Quartararo for three race wins this year but snatching second in the world championship behind Suzuki's Joan Mir.

"We've had our ups and downs throughout the year," said Yamaha managing director Lin Jarvis. "Obviously we started o༺n a big🌸 high at the beginning of the season with one-two in the Jerez races.

"But whilst we won the races, immediately in Jerez we discovered our Achilles' heel. And our Achilles' heel this year was the valve problem t♐hat we suffered from round one. Already from FP1 Maverick had the first problem, then in the race Valentino stopped, then Frankie Morbidelli stopped in race two.

"✤So this Achilles' heel has been following us all year long and that obviously disturbed the chance for some of our riders to make better performances sometimes because we had to modi☂fy the engines, detune the engines, and then we parked a lot of engines.

"We parked eight engines for virtually the whole year. So we'vꦚe been running in a very strange, stressed and difficult situation for our riders above all. Finally that's taken a toll at the end of the year when we had this r𝓀esolution in Valencia and got the penalty that affected the constructors' and teams' championship but fortunately not the riders'.

"But it🌜's been a hard year, to manage in Covid and manage with that problem, it's been like having a rucksack with many kilos on your back.

"That said, on🏅 the positive side we saw many race victories, so our bike was clearly a strong bike this year, capable to win in many different circumstances. It's been a bit unusual as well because the Petronas team won six races and the factory team only one race.

"But obviously the bike had the potential and was able to win races, but we have not achieved our goal which is obviously to win the world championship. Chapeau to Suzuki because they've been very consistent, they've put t﷽ogether a good campaign, Joan Mir 🗹has shown his maturity and they won the championship.

"So I would say it's been mi🍌ssed opportunities from our 🦂side."

Inconsistency from one track to tꩲhe next, usually linked to grip, has often plagued Yamaha in recent seasons. It took a new twist in 2020 as riders struggled to put together two strong results ꦬeven during back-to-back events at the same circuit.

"Unfortunat✱ely this [inconsistency] is a bit of a problem we've been dealing with for the past three years actually and in some other years it's been more extreme than this year. We're always struggling with grip, with traction and therefore also with braking," Jarvis said.

The quest for a solution was also hampered by travel restrictions due to the Covid pandemic, which meant su☂pers🎃tar test rider Jorge Lorenzo was barely used.

"I think we've been handicapped this year; we had a new bike spec with a new engine and chassis, but we have h༺ardly done any testing apart from the official testing with the factory contracted riders," 🍒Jarvis confirmed.

"We took Jorge Lorenzo under contract and we had a full testing programme planned for this ye𒈔ar. But we were using a Japanese testing team with some European staff and Jorge. In reality we only ran him for two days in Sepang and then finally the pre-Portimao test.

"So all other activities that we planned to do this year, unfortunately, were cancelled [due to Covid] and I think that was definitely negative for us this year because we couldn't work on the issues and I still thinkꦗ Jorge would have been an exce🧔llent test rider to do that job."

By the end of🤪 the year, Quartara൲ro and Vinales were openly questioning the selection of the Factory-Spec bike this season.

While Morbidelli and the A-Spec romped to two wins, three podiums and 81 points during t♏he last five rounds, Vinales slumped to 36 points and Qua♐rtararo just 12 points.

Jarvis conceded "the bike has not been able to deliver, by design, consistent performances under all race tracks. That's not directly related to the valve problem. That'ℱs another mꦕatter, of fundamental design."

The Englishman added that "statistically more of the wins have been on the new Factory-Spec," but there were also three times as⛦ many Factory-Spec ꧂M1s on the grid compared to the A-Spec.

Jar🌸vis explained that striking a balance bet🌠ween bike development and sticking with what you know is always a risky business, but emphasised that an unchanged bike won't stay competitive for long in MotoGP.

"It depends on the track, it depends on the circumstance, b♐ut sometimes in order to move forward you lose something along the way as well and it’s very difficult to constantly improve," he said.

"And when you are with a Factory-Spec you need to progress, you 🐷can't stay with what you have and e𓄧xpect to be competitive in the future.

"So maybe on this occasion I think Frankie has done exceptionally well - 🍎and we saw also last year in Fabio's case, he didn’t 🎶win a race but he was very strong on his package and sometimes working with the package you have is better than constantly developing and looking and searching for new things.

"So it's always a trade-off and alwa🔴ys a balance."

'Engine error was made in the middle of last year'

The v🔜alve saga and perennial lack of top speed means Yamaha's engine department is under the spotlight more than ever for 2021.

But while no engine desig🍌n changes are allowed for the top manufacturers until the start of 2022, Jarvis is encouraged by how the current engine performed when fitted with the correct valves.

"I don’t really expect any maܫjor changes to our engine department in the near future," Jarvis said.

"I think the erro🔯r that we made this year, was ✨made in the middle of last year when our valve supplier told us they couldn't continue production of the valves we wanted to use.

"At that tim๊e Yamaha took this decision to have two valve suppliers a🙈nd that was their misunderstanding of the regulations.

"So 🏅I think in terms of the pure engine department, our engines honestly speaking apart from the weakness of some valve batch that we had, have been very reliable for the rest🐎 of the season.

"Some of our engines have done more than 3,000 kilometres, which is pretty extraor🥂dinary. And they've had to do that because we had to park a whole load of engines.

"So I think the main attention for the future improvements we will make is a much more rigid attentiꦚon to detail, in the way th🍨at we plan the season. reconfirming on the quality of components, reconfirming on the regulations. So a lot more reconfirmation will be required.

"For the 2021 season we are quite confident to be frank with our engines because of the reliability that we've seen when using the right valves for most o🧜f this season.

"As you know the regulations mean we will continue to use those engines next year. we're always missing horsepower so we couﷺld do💙 with some more horsepower, but we are going to have to wait until 2022 to get that when we are able to develop the engines."

Yamaha will keep the same four race riders in 2021, but with Rossi and Quartararo swapping places while Cal Cr𓆏utchlow replaces Loren▨zo as test rider.