Yamaha promise Rossi competitive bike

Three-time world champion Valentino Rossi has been reassured he will have a competitive bike next season by his new Yamaha team.

Yamaha struggled this year to match the pace of Honda, who powered Rossi to a hat-trick of titles, and Carlos Checa was their highest-placed rider in last season’s championship, in seventh.

But Rossi has ditched Honda in favour of the Gauloises Yamaha outfit in search of a new challenge, with many experts predicting a difficult season in 2004.

However, Yamaha’s motorsports chief Masao Furusawa is confident close-season changes can help deliver a truly competitive package for Rossi.

He said: “We’ve recently made a lot of changes in our motorsport organisation and we feel confident that we will be able to produce the right package.

“We can’t make any guarantees and we know it’s not going to be easy but we’re working as hard as possible to make sure the package is fully capable to get the results we desire.

“It is certainly our aim to put him in a position to challenge for race wins from the first race of the championship in April.”

Rossi’s former team Repsol Honda have prevented him testing the Yamaha R1 until his contract officially expires next week but Furusawa revealed progress has been made without the Italian.

“During this season we’ve learned a lot about what is good and what is not so good for the current M1 bike, verifying with engineering analysis from our measured data,” he said.

“Some of that data has been put into a computer simulation to further develop the bike until Valentino becomes available in January.

“Of course more time would be welcome but I believe the M1 can easily be adapted to suit his needs, even with a limited time frame during a race weekend.”