From the archive
To help understand the first crossplane R1, Bike invited a supersport racer named Cal Crutchlow to go for a ride...
By Martin Fitz-Gibbons Photography Chippy Wood
Yamaha’s sixth-generation R1 launched to a frenzy of hype and hyperbole, flooding the zone with jargon the world rushed to pretend it understood. From crossplane cranks to inertial torques, what mattered was the mechanical magic behind their epic YZR-M1 MotoGP racer was heading to the road. Soon we were all going to feel like Valentino Rossi.
Or were we? Simon Hargreaves flagged issues at the launch. ‘No worries with the engine,’ he said. ‘It’s charismatic, powerful and potent.’ But… ‘The problem is feedback from the rear tyre – it feels perilously light. I can’t get on with its steering either.’
Neither could I. When Bike gathered all four 2009 superbikes I was gutted to find the R1 was the heaviest and clumsiest. It sounded sublime, sure, but it also had the least rear grip and the snatchiest throttle. My second opinion (‘Don’t see what the fuss is about’) earned a very displeased phone call from Yamaha UK.
Ironically, I then inherited Bike’s long-term R1 in late 2009. With winter looming we wondered whether recently crowned World Supersport champ Cal Crutchlow fancied taking it for a spin. After all, he was about to start racing an R1 in WSB.
The 24-year-old arrives an hour late, with just a T-shirt and vented leathers despite November’s chill. Cal’s aggressive riding style is soon evident: speed limits ignored, rear tyres smoked, huge wheelies hoiked. Clutching a hot coffee, facts are declared: ‘The tyres are rubbish,’ says the chap in the Yamaha leathers. ‘And there’s a delay when you open the throttle.’ PR filter: zero.
Cal got on far better with the R1 in race trim, taking pole at his second round and scoring three wins in his debut year – including a double at Silverstone. Then he was off to MotoGP, where he would become the first Brit to win a premier-class Grand Prix since Barry Sheene. He retired at the end of 2020.
The R1 didn’t last much longer, leaving Europe’s road-bike range at the end of 2024. The crossplane crank had one final year in MotoGP before Yamaha switched to a V4. But now Cal is back racing – and an R1 return could be on the cards, too. Yamaha’s European President Olivier Prévost revealed: ‘Just coming back with [the] current R1 is not enough. We need to bring something new – it should offer a step up in performance, handling, and everything related to racing.’ If a V4 R1 does arrive, we know just the chap to tell us what he thinks…