MotoGP – Takahiro Sumi is the new Yamaha YZR-M1 project leader

Bruno Gomes

February 1, 2019

Photo credits: Yamaha Racing

It was a tough decision for sure, but one that Yamaha had to make after a very disappointing 2019 MotoGP season, where the factory team only stepped to the top of the podium once, thanks to Maverick Viñales, and was very far from the performance showed by rival factories Ducati and Honda. During the Winter break, Yamaha decided to fire Kouji Tsuya, and they’ve finally found a new project leader: Takahiro Sumi.

The development of Yamaha’s MotoGP prototype, the YZR-M1, has been very difficult, especially since the introduction of the unified electronics for every team in MotoGP, and while Honda, Ducati or even Suzuki have made great improvements on their bikes, Yamaha, on the other hand, has suffered to deliver the performance needed to allow team riders Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi to fight for the wins.

Well, now the task, the difficult task, to get the YZR-M1 prototype up to speed is all in the hands of Takahiro Sumi.

Up until now, Sumi was the engineer responsible for the development of the frame on the Yamaha YZR-M1, but from this moment, in fact since the end of 2018, he will be in charge of leading the team of Yamaha Racing engineers on finding how to make the bike work.

The confirmation that Takahiro Sumi will now be the project leader for MotoGP was announced by Yamaha Racing president Kouichi Tsuji, during the Petronas Yamaha SRT team launch that happened in Kuala Lumpur a few days ago.