ARCHIVE: The frames of the 1993 GP season

VJMC’s Steve Cooper remembers…

The best-laid plans of mice and men – things went a little sideways for Yamaha at the start of the 1993 season and didn’t end well either. 

With everyone pretty much happy with the revised big bang motors, the factory decided to focus on the chassis. Using extruded alloy sections rather than the previous welded and fabricated Deltabox, the new set up should have resulted in a perfect marriage of running gear and power unit. However, it didn’t work out that way due to the significantly increased rigidity of the arrangement, meaning riders were suffering from a dramatic lack of feedback. Luca Cadalora in particular struggled and even his Marlboro Team Roberts partner Wayne Rainey didn’t find the 0WF2 the easiest thing to ride. 

Revisions were rolled out in time for the Japanese GP, allowing the American to make the best of the situation in a season where he and fellow countryman Schwantz on a Suzuki were fighting tooth and nail most of the time. A new frame was tried at Assen at extremely short notice, but Rainey persisted with the ‘Mk.2’ metalwork for the race, coming in fifth. With GPs at two-weekly intervals, there simply wasn’t the time or resources to get Yamaha’s race team back in Japan to build, test, and ship revised chassis back to Europe for the next GP. 

The Assen prototype frame had been built by Serge Rosset’s ROC firm and based heavily around the 1991 0WC1, and on shakedown it proved to be a godsend. A first at Catalunya followed by a third at San Remo saw Rainey take back control now that the back end of the bike was no longer breaking away. At Donington, Mick Doohan skittled Alex Barros and Kevin Schwantz off, allowing Yamaha to take a 1-2 with Cadalora finally mastering the 500 to take the win. Things were looking good at last for Yamaha with another 1-2 (Rainey then Cadalora) at the Czech GP, but the Italian GP at Misano cast a shadow over the entire padlock for the rest of the season. 

A combination of late braking and a minor problem with the Tarmac saw Rainey crash out. What looked like a ‘normal racing crash’ was complicated by a gravel trap that been built more with race cars than motorcycle riders in mind. Wayne Rainey’s spine was broken, and he would never walk again. 

Could the American have won the championship? Almost certainly, given how the ROC chassis had proved to be so effective and even more so give Rainey was still second at the end of the season to Schwantz – 248 to 214 points. Luca Cadalora carried the flag, managing to gain fifth in the overall results.

With the 1994 season just around the corner, Yamaha was going to find it an uphill struggle without its top man. 

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