Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

Yamaha has patented a seamless gearbox for its flagship road-going motorcycles. The seamless gearbox technology is derived from MotoGP as every single MotoGP race bike now uses a seamless gearbox. This also means that the technology is pretty expensive, but it is set to make riding your litre-class Yamaha superbike a much more pleasurable experience.

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

Almost all mainstream manufacturers who compete in motorsport, do it for two main reasons. Firstly, there are all the marketing rewards and good publicity that comes from it. Secondly, motorsport helps develop more products and technologies for the road-going vehicles.

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

For example, MotoGP has inspired so many technologies that are now found on road-going motorcycles. For example, the quickshifters that are so commonly found on many road bikes today were once a racetrack novelty. More recently, Ducati transferred the MotoGP-style winglets aerodynamics technology to its road-going Panigale series.

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

Ducati was also the first to patent its seamless gearbox technology for road use as the Italian brand patented it in 2021. However, it didn't really make it into any road-going motorcycle. Yamaha on the other hand looks like it actually has intentions to introduce a seamless gearbox on its flagship motorcycle.

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

What Is A Seamless Gearbox?

A seamless gearbox allows the transmission of power to the rear wheel seamlessly. Traditional motorcycle gearboxes have a pause in the power delivery. Even though the use of quickshifters minimise the pause, the effects of the pause in power transmission is not completely negated and the pause itself doesn't entirely disappear.

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

MotoGP motorcycles have become extremely powerful over the years. The most powerful motorcycles in MotoGP are pushing out over 250bhp and more recently, Prima Pramac Racing Ducati set the highest top speed ever in MotoGP - 363.6km/h! With power and speeds like this, the slightest change in stability can be catastrophic or at the very least affect lap times.

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

Traditional gearboxes cause the motorcycles to lose stability and this was made quite obvious by the lap times of Aprilia and Suzuki in the 2015 MotoGP season. By this time, Honda, Yamaha, and Ducati were all already using seamless gearboxes, and their motorcycles were seamlessly faster. Pun intended!

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

Aprilia and Suzuki soon moved to the seamless technology and their bikes were able to catch up with the frontrunners. Quite obviously then, seamless gearboxes make a huge difference.

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

How Does A Seamless Gearbox Work?

The working of a seamless gearbox is a little complicated. To avoid the jerk or instability caused by a traditional gearbox, a seamless gearbox allows two gears to be selected at the same time, much like a dual-clutch transmission found in cars. This however, is lighter and faster.

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

There are four flange-shaped couplings and the flange shape allows one of the gears to be locked in motion. When the gear is shifted, an internal mechanism allows the flanges to move and the locked gear is released, instead locking the other engaged gear. This allows for a seamless switch between gears, thereby also giving rise to the name.

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

Advantages Of A Seamless Gearbox

One look at the MotoGP bikes going around the track at blistering paces makes the advantages of seamless gearboxes quite obvious. It is quicker, shifts gears faster, doesn't allow instability to creep in, etc.

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

When it is adapted for road use though, there could be a few other advantages that are mind-blowing. It allows for a more convenient and smoother ride and will reduce wear and tear on components. Most importantly though, it will allow manufacturers to implement an automatic mode in which the motorcycle will automatically shift gears using the flange mechanism.

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

Disadvantages Of A Seamless Gearbox

Seamless gearboxes are complex technologies that are pretty expensive to manufacture. Adapting the technology for road use will only increase costs. These costs will eventually be passed on to the buyer and this can only mean that the next-generation Yamaha YZF-R1 might become much more expensive.

Yamaha Patents MotoGP’s Seamless Gearbox For Road Use: Advantages & Disadvantages; How Does It Work?

Thoughts On Yamaha Bringing Seamless Gearbox Technology From MotoGP To Its Road Bikes

The only downside to this entire development could be the added cost involved in it. Apart from this, it is a great idea to use the 'from the racetrack to the road' ideology. The machines in MotoGP use lots of technologies and systems that will eventually make it to road bikes and seamless gearboxes seem like the next technology to do so.

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Read more on: #yamaha
Article Published On: Friday, June 3, 2022, 13:12 [IST]
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