[sportrider - features] - World Superbike: Yamaha R1 - Crossplane Cracker

[Ninjette Newsbot]

World Superbike: Yamaha R1 - Crossplane Cracker

Cal Crutchlow's Yamaha R1 World Superbike requires a special technique.Defending a championship title is often as hard as winning it in the first place, and after series rookie Ben Spies delivered Yamaha its first ever World Superbike crown in 2009 with the then-new crossplane-crank R1, the Japanese marque struggled to repeat the achievement in 2010. It took two-thirds of the season before Cal Crutchlow and his race engineer Markus Eschenbacher figured out the setup that would allow the young Brit to get his rear tire to last a race, in coming to terms with the most idiosyncratic power delivery of any bike on the SBK grid. Once they did so, Crutchlow immediately became a contender, scoring a double victory on home ground at Silverstone in August and another win in the final round at Magny-Cours.


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