Spy shot and video of Yamaha's 4-stroke GP bike ?

Spy shot and video of Yamaha's 4-stroke GP bike ?
MCNEWS.COM.AU EXCLUSIVE - Some have come later but we were first

A loyal reader who happened to be passing Phillip Island today took a pic for us of what he thinks is Yamaha's 4-stroke, 4 cylinder, GP prototype. From all the information I have been able to dig up we are pretty sure that this is their new baby, right here at MCNEWS.COM.AU .

3 bikes were on the track with 2 in Yamaha factory colours and the one pictured above with an unpainted fairing. Our spy tells us that the unpainted bike sounded unlike regular 2-stroke GP bikes or World SuperBikes but was clearly a 4-stroke pulling extremely high revs and sounding very rough under engine braking.

Times were in the mid to high 30s and top speeds are rumoured to have approached around 320kph.

One of the painted bikes highsided on the first lap out after changing some settings but appeared to be okay.

Can anyone in the know tell us more?

Please credit these pictures and video to MCNEWS.COM.AU should you do the dirty on us and forward it to them via email. Or be a good bloke and just tell them they can find it at MCNEWS.COM.AU .

The best way to download this video is to right click on this link and save it to your hard drive before playing it. Or if you have a very quick connection just click on the link, but play it through more than once for it to run smoothly.

------ News added later -----

A little bit more information as to this test has been fed our way here at MCNEWS.COM.AU .

The two R7s present at the test were ex Haga and Guareschi bikes that will be used in the domestic Japanese SuperBike series this year.

One rider did most of the laps on the GP prototype before Japanese star Yoshikawa got onboard for only around 5 laps and was immediately the quickest, down around a 1m34.2.

Top speed on the straight was around 7kph faster than Biaggi's YZR 500 at last year's Australian GP.

What could be the most interesting fact is that we have been informed that the bike did not appear to be very hard on tyres..........

Apparently the bike is referred to as the YZR900F within Yamaha. It is also thought that the bike was using carbs rather than injection at this early stage of development.

Kocinski to help develop the bike..

Video footage 1 (No sound)

Video footage 2 (With sound)

Better video released a couple of months later by Yamaha
Low-Res - 800 KB
High-Res - 1.5 MB