Words: Harkamal Singh

Yes, you read that right! Yamaha has been working hard to bring an all new R1 for the year 2015 and here are some details on the engine of the 2015 Yamaha YZF R1. Since its inception, R1 has always been the motorcycle which ruled the hearts of countless people all over the world. Yamaha is famous for producing race track oriented bikes and the R1 is a perfect example. Over the years they made a lot of efforts for its development. 2009 was the year when Yamaha introduced some big changes in it, bringing in the Cross plane crankshaft and an uneven firing order (also known as Big-bang). This was a technology derived from their MotoGP bike YZR-M1. The bike was appreciated a lot by fans. However, many people did not like the way it was designed. The real challenge for R1 arrived in the name of BMW S1000RR. Not only it became the fastest production 1000cc bike, its handling is exceptional too. Yamahas have been known for their handling capabilities but R1 was gaining weight, the bike was slower while changing directions and competition was moving ahead with fast pace.

For 2015, Yamaha has decided to go back to its drawing boards and bring back the same charm that was a characteristic of the original model. From last few months, they have been extensively testing different versions of engines. The new R1 will still use inline 4 cross plane crankshaft layout. While there have been rumors and suggestions that the new liter bike could use an inline-3 engine, there are very good chances that Yamaha is sticking to the old design and working on the engine to add more horses. ‘200 bhp’ is the figure that is considered magical in the world of litre class superbikes today and Yamaha is working exactly on that. Yes, the next gen 2015 Yamaha YZF R1 will have a max power of 200bhp, enough to have the rivals worried, really worried!

Alongside engine, there will be major updates in chassis department. As we mentioned R1 was getting bulkier every year, hard to throw around corners compared to competition. The lessons learnt in MotoGP are finally producing results for production bikes. Gone are the under-seat exhausts, they are being replaced by a low slung, stubby side exhaust. They are adopting this design simply for better mass centralization and for lower center of gravity levels all adding up to an exceptional handling. Yamaha is upgrading the chassis, based on M1 to make it a race weapon once again.

As far as styling is concerned we do not have any official image of the next model however a UK based designer Kar lee produced a digital mock up, which gives us an idea how the future R1 may look like. To make things more interesting we are showing another image of a computer generated R1 design which was leaked few earlier by MCN UK. Let us know which design you prefer.

“Inspired from M1” as they are calling it, even if half of it is true then it would be a revival of those old legendary times for R1.

Image Source: Performance Bikes Magazine and MCN UK