V4s and I4s are nice and both are winning races
Granted V4s and I4s are nice but they are not equal... V4 advantage...
Yamaha's long flexy crank limits RPMs and thus horsepower and Yamaha's racers always ask for more power...
Quote Mat Oxley MotoGp analysis V4 advantage...
"Yamaha won the 2021 MotoGP Riders Championship for
the brand's first time since Michelin tires and Dorna's same-for-all
Magneti- Marelli software arrived five years earlier and confused the
hell out of Yamaha engineers. Fabio Quartararo won the title like
Jorge Lorenzo won Yamaha's last title in 2015, by qualifying on the
front row at pretty much every race and escaping out front, using the
clear track to unleash the YZR-Ml's amazing corner speed.
The problem
is that this is the only way the M1 can win races, because it has the
slowest engine in MotoGP, so if it gets caught up with a couple of
faster bikes it can't utilize its corner speed and the heat from the
other bikes raises its front tire temperature, which increases
pressure, which shrinks the contact patch and reduces grip. "·
"My only request to the engineers is to focus on top speed," says
Quartararo. "If I have the same bike plus some more horsepower I will
be happy."
"In fact the 22-year-old Frenchman needs a LOT more horsepower. At the
last race of 2021, at Valencia, (where the 0.9-kilometer straightaway
is preceded by a second-gear corner, making it a real test of
acceleration performance). the YZR-Ml reached 199.9 mph (321.7 kph),
while the best Ducati V4 did 208.4 mph (335.4 kph)!"
"The problem, of course, is that an Inline-4 engine like the YZR-Ml's
will never make as much power as a V4 engine as used by Ducati, Honda,
KTM, and Aprilia, because V 4s have shorter, stiffer crankshafts and
camshafts, so they can be tuned more aggressively."
