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Man Benistant looks miserable on that bike. He was so good in EMX and early in MX2 but recently just seems to be fighting the bike every week. Hope he can get back to his former self in mxgp next year
Is it known it was bike malfunction for Geerts?
As for Benistant, he's a big guy, probably is overriding the bike. Factory Yamaha 250 should be plenty capable (at least was when Geerts was on it).
Geerts clearly drags his pegs on the take off...
Never seen a team/brand on mismanagement like the current MX2/MXGP Yamaha squads. They had to kick out 3-4 riders and important people behind the scenes for sure after the 2024 season and start with fresh blood.
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Its the Yamaha management that failed and Louis Vosters made them look like clowns this year.
Totally agree. Next to that, current line up is also shit. Hopefully they can get Gajser and turn things around.
Motor malfunction for Jago.
Reisulis motor malfunction Saturday.
Benistant motor malfunction moto1 Sunday .
Elzinga motor malfunction moto1 Sunday.
Again, everything is roses at Rinaldi Racing and Monster Energy Yamaha.
Riders and primary sponsors are very happy and definitely confident with the bikes.
Sasha needs something to give. He cannot keep it on two wheels.
Gifting’s YZF engine seems to stay together the whole motos, good enough power for holeshots/top 3 starts!
Someone who knows perhaps can explain why those in charge dumped Vosters for Kemea and promoted Hutten to mx2, because I can’t see the benefit of it! What a shitshow and crappy ROI for the brand.
David Braceras: fractured ilium
The Yamaha MX2 team had Star Racing engines back in Geerts days. Can't compare to what they have now.
Isn't this change due to the sound limitations?
Because the people in charge at Yamaha want to dictate how to run the team and Louis Vosters doesn't comply with their silly demands.
Star stopped supplying motors to Yamaha MX2 at the end of the 2023 season- budget issues for Hutten.
Yamaha and Rinaldi was late in starting sound testing for the 2025 season. As a result the 250 is significantly down on power as compared to the Austrian bikes.
Apparantly, Renaux is trying to get out of his 2026 contract with Yamaha.
That's good news for yamaha.....
Damn and Tim is going to yamaha.😨 If they have motor issues not good at all.
Pit Row
I think a guy like Tim has quite some leverage to discuss the development on the motorcycle. It's not that it is a total shit bike, in the US we have Tomac, Cooper and Webb putting in very decent results on them.
I think we now know who Ducati is pulling from another major team, which Lewis was reffering to. Renaux.
His people are trying to figure out how it can be done without a huge financial penalty I hear.
Unbelievable.
There was a rumour swirling round the EnduroGP pits at the weekend that Red Bull have come in to fund Tim on a Red Bull KTM next year...
I heard that Ducati (Wilvo) has done both 84 and 243 a bike test and a (huge) contract. Both refused at the end.
Renaux moving from one shitbike to another doesn’t make any sense at all. Maybe he’s done with the Kemea squad.
Yamaha Factory MXGP has become the Kawasaki team in the US. Good luck to Tim and Chase I guess
It’s wild that at a local pro level guys love the yz & kx bikes but factory teams in both US & Europe are struggling with them. Jago, Renaux, Tomac, Seewar, Evans, Prado, Benistant, Elzinga all struggle with set up & being dialed in all the time & that’s just off the top of my head.
Where Honda locally is not that well liked but factory guys seem pretty good on them.
You'd think Yamaha would step in and fund the cost of the star motors for both the 250-450 bikes.
To me it looks like yamaha is looking for teams who can party fund their factory efforts. Hutten could but now lost jumbo and that kind of ends the funding
Star motors have had more than their fair share of failures as well.
At the moment I'm writing a piece about the budgets of factory teams and semi-factory supported teams and how much money they get to work with and how much they need to fund themselves by finding sponsors and very often putting personal money in it. Lets say even I am in shock. Some teamowners just don't wanna talk, others are happy they finally can talk.
But to return to the Yamaha problem. Yamaha Japan is very fond on Michele Rinaldi who gave them multiple world championships, remember they also made the mistake to chose Rinaldi above De Carli/Tony Cairoli years back. At the moment Rinaldi is the engine builder, but they are also in the middle of a re-location (in the middle of the season). Also at the same time everyone who raced with Rinaldi kits knows they where sometimes amazing and sometimes rubbish. Rinaldi creating engines for himself went OK, creating those kids for semi-teams was already a problem back in 2005-2015. His work is like that from a baseball batter who's fin de career, sometimes he hits a home-run but mostly he misses. The politics makes it even harder because if you're a rider that want something done on the engine, your mechanic needs to inform the head mechanic and he needs to inform the team-owner. The team-owner needs to call or send a message to Japan, and they are connecting to Rinaldi. The Rinaldi 250 bike was rubbish when KEMEA was running the team, but Hans Corvers bought STAR Engines, the Rinaldi 250 bikes are rubbish now when Hutten is running the team, but Hutten knows they are probably out after this year due to their legal problems, so they try to help their riders with bikes tuned by Grollenman. It just makes that both Elzinga and Benistant, who need to step-up to the MXGP, are screwed. The kids can't put two good motos together and who's interested in such riders?
Luckily SR Honda has signed Benistant, but if you said this 2 or 3 years back to Josse Sallefranque (Team owner) that he would be able to sign one of the big French talents, he would called you crazy. Now he will have two amazing riders with Horgmo and Benistant.
Tim Gajser doesn't know what he will see. At HRC Honda they have a few Japanese staff members who write and send the debriefing straight to Japan at the end of Sunday evening. Honda Japan knows already at Monday morning how the GP went and what they want to do for the next GP and they can say yes or no. If it is yes they can start doing the work because building the engine is done inhouse.
Interesting take Mattii, thanks for sharing. I remember De Reuver having issues with the Yamaha politics as well, back in his Rinaldi days. Also goes to show how far team owners like Corvers & Hutten are going to make their riders happy (buying Star Racing engines, getting bikes tuned by Grolleman). Some may disagree with me on this, due to having more insight in their current atmosphere in the teams by knowing people personally, but if we don't have these team owners then the MXGP would be even less attractive for riders and we would have even less high paid riders.
Seems like Corvers is really big into sponsoring multiple Yamaha teams, as I saw CorPallets on the MJC Yamaha team photo's, which is another company of him.
Glad to see Benistant has a ride for Honda SR, now hopefully a team like JK Yamaha for example would be able to pick up Elzinga. Another hope for me is that Venrooy (KTM) adds a rider to their roster, next to Valk but then in the MXGP class.. I wouldn't be surprised if Vlaanderen gave him a call
I could see Gifting and Vlaanderen together at JK Yamaha next year.
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