Yamaha Factory Racing Talks About Its New WR450F Rally Motorcycle

Yamaha Factory Racing Manager Jose Leloir talks about the team’s new WR450 Rally entry for the 2015 Dakar Rally.

Yamaha Factory Racing team riders Olivier Pain, Michael Metge and Alessandro Botturi are set to begin their quest for victory in the 2015 Dakar Rally, and they will do it aboard all-new WR450 Rally factory machines.

Dakar 2015 will kick off in Buenos Aires on January 4 and cover 8000 kilometers (just under 5000 miles), making good preparation and equipment crucial. Yamaha Factory Racing is confident that its brand-new WR450 Rally will be up to the task. With its rear-inclined engine, the new bike has much in common with its YZ450F sibling. However, unlike the motocrosser, the WR450 Rally features electric start.

But one of the most striking features of the new WR450 Rally is its unique single-cell fuel tank, which incorporates the rear sub frame, according to Yamaha Factory Racing Team Yamlube Team Manager Jose Leloir.

“The major consideration when building a Dakar bike is where to place the necessary 35 liters of fuel,” Leloir said. “For 2014 we had five separate fuel tanks all requiring pumps and all linked by fuel pipes. By using a single carbon fiber fuel cell we have simplified the system massively and in the processes made huge gains in both weight saving and reliability. In total we’ve reduced the bike’s weight by a considerable ten kilos and in the process made servicing the bike each evening a whole lot easier.”

In addition to having less weight to haul around, the team’s riders are no longer required to fiddle with with five different fuel taps. As an added bonus, they actually have a fuel gauge that lets them know exactly how much fuel they have left to reach their checkpoints.

“Obviously the single-cell solution wasn’t just a question of making it fit and plumbing it in, it also had major implications in terms of the bike’s setup,” Leloir added, “Once we decided on how we wanted to carry the fuel the bike went through several stages of development to ensure that the WR handled how the riders wanted it to with the new weight distribution.”

In the end the team settled on a modified standard Kayaba front fork, specific front end geometry, a modified rear suspension linkage, a full factory Kayaba rear shock absorber and a longer swinging arm.

“We tested a large number of different configurations before the riders were entirely happy with how the bike handled, and now they delighted to have a bike that is both stable over the fast going and manoeuvrable over the increasingly technical terrain the Dakar organizers are choosing to run the ‘bike-only’ specials over,” Leloir added.

Yamaha is claiming that the 2015 WR450 Rally is faster than last year’s entry, and the single-cell fuel tank plays a role in that.

“Some of the bike’s increased performance comes from a new fuel-injection system incorporating traction control that will reduce rider fatigue, improve fuel consumption and tire wear,” Leloir said. “A substantial part of our top speed gain comes from improved aerodynamics. Put simply, with the single fuel cell, the bike is much slimmer and so cuts through the air with considerably less drag. A big part of the Dakar’s appeal is that anything can happen out there in the desert, but we are at least confident that for 2015 we have given our riders a machine with which they can fully express their talents.”