In May 1961, in a race that would later become a milestone for Yamaha, Fumio Ito placed in the top three in a 250cc Grand Prix event at the Grand Prix of France.
That was the first Grand Prix participation of Yamaha, 60 years ago to the month.
Since then, Yamaha has won many more races and titles in MotoGP™ and WSBK. In 2021, the company will celebrate its 60th Anniversary GP win in this class.
They are currently 1st overall (with 390 points) in WSBK with a Yamaha rider on the podium for every round this year. They look poised to this year.
To commemorate Team Blue’s 60th anniversary of Grand Prix racing, Yamaha has unveiled a trio of models – the R1, R7, and R3 – with a World GP 60th Anniversary Edition livery that is somewhat throwback to its first-ever GP bike.
Last night, Yamaha announced their 60th anniversary livery for the MotoGP and WorldSBK teams.
The strong heritage
The colours themselves haven’t changed, but here we’ll discuss how these colours have influenced the evolution of Yamaha Grand Prix motorcycle liveries over the years.
The R7, R1 and R3 models are icons of Yamaha’s sportbike heritage, but they’re more than that. They’re solid, reliable motorcycles that never fail to reward their riders with smile-inducing performance.
With the 60th Anniversary scheme, Yamaha wants to celebrate this appeal through our colour scheme.
The scheme also accentuates chassis form and components like radial brakes, aluminium swingarm and tapered headtube, developed by engineers working on these bikes every day.
Yamaha hopes this livery will help commemorate Yamaha’s rich competition history as well as pique the interest of a new generation of riders.”
The race-winning performance of which Agostini spoke wasn’t on the F1 oval, as mentioned, but rather on a more traditional motorcycle racing circuit.
In 1978, Johnny Cecotto placed 2nd in the 500cc championship aboard a Yamaha racer that was similar to the bike you see above.
Yamaha is marking 60 years of GP racing success. The brand will be running the unique paint scheme for the first time.
However, for those of us who can’t wait till then, Yamaha has also released a video showing off the bike’s styling and detailing from every angle.
Pricing
The unique livery costs more compared to the standard models.
- World GP 60th Anniversary Edition RR1: Arrives at $18,099, which is $500 more than the standard model.
- R7: Costs $9,299 while the standard model costs $8,999 and
- R3: Costs $5,499 while the base model arrives at $5,299
With 37 manufacturer credits and 55 GP wins, Yamaha remains one of the sole contenders in MotoGP.
And we had seen renowned riders like Lawson, Rossi, Agostini, Lorenzo and Roberts under the Yamaha Team Blue.
via Yamaha
