Three races into the 2013 MotoGP season, and the Yamaha Factory Racing team have been forced to tear up the script they had written for themselves after preseason testing. Their original goals were for Jorge Lorenzo to win as often as possible in the early part of the season, building a lead at the tracks at which Yamaha is supposed to be strong, then defend that lead in the second half of the year. Valentino Rossi, meanwhile, was to finish adapting to the Yamaha once again and get on the podium ahead of the Hondas as much as possible, to help build out Lorenzo's lead in the championship.
The plan worked perfectly at Qatar. Lorenzo was untouchable in the race, and won easily. Rossi showed he still had it by getting on the podium and taking second, while the first Honda was Marc Marquez in third. This worked out even better than expected, as although Marquez is clearly an exceptional talent, the real title threat, Yamaha believed, would come from Dani Pedrosa.
Race two, at Austin in Texas, went a little better and a little worse than anticipated. That Marquez would win there had been expected, after all, the Repsol Honda rookie had been quickest at the test. But Marquez' advantage over Lorenzo - and especially the gap from Pedrosa to Lorenzo - was much smaller than they had feared, putting Lorenzo within striking distance of the Repsol Hondas. For Valentino Rossi, on the other hand, things did not go so well, the Italian never feeling comfortable on the bike, and finishing behind two satellite riders, Monster Tech 3 Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow and the LCR Honda of Stefan Bradl.
Race three is where the plan started going horribly wrong. The Yamaha men arrived in Jerez supremely confident, after having dominated preseason testing there. Jerez was the start of a run of Yamaha tracks, where Lorenzo and Rossi - and maybe even Cal Crutchlow - would really start to shine, and put some clear blue water between themselves and the Repsol Hondas. It did not work out that way: the Yamahas struggled against the mighty Hondas, and Dani Pedrosa took a very easy victory. Adding insult to injury, Marc Marquez bumped Jorge Lorenzo out of second place, robbing the Yamaha man of the lead in the championship, and putting both Repsol Hondas ahead.
And now MotoGP heads to Le Mans, yet another track that is supposed to favor the Yamahas. Given Jorge Lorenzo's utterly dominant win in the soaking rain at the French circuit in 2012, it is easy to think that the Yamahas should have an easy time of it here. The danger is that riders, teams and fans follow the comfortable assumption that Le Mans is a Yamaha track, disregarding recent history there.
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