From what I understand it's not a question of power. The Hondas can definitely accelerate faster, with the seemless gearbox. They do have more top end, but that will only come into play if you have a straight the length of COTA. Yamahas are more stable so they can carry more speed into the corner. Hence all the discussion about Yamaha vs Honda tracks.
seems like this has been discussed a thousand times. v = more grunt, so the bike favors point-n-shoot/being picked up asap. inline = more stable in the corner, so it favors, er, cornerspeed. that said it's not 'slow', nor is the honda 'bad' in the corners. for the last few years i've been hoping that george took HRC's offers just to see what he did with that bike, cuz while certainly the M1 favors cornerspeed, his is significantly better than all other yamaha riders. likewise, seeing how MM throws around that RC i really wonder what he would look like on the M1.
bravo to the cornerworker whose job it was to watch the track and yell RUN! at the appropriate time.
and holy hell what a performance by both those guys.
bummed for cal. hope the arm is ok.
