No wonder they lost the way... too many cooks....
"First of all, for me the electronic and engine are the area where we have to improve, especially the engine. But now it looks like Yamaha agree," Rossi added.
"But also in the chassis they try for better agility or when you brake, to be a little bit faster in corner entry. More precise. The new chassis is good. I like."
Potentially the biggest change was debut of Rossi's new crew chief David Munoz, stepping-up from the VR46 Moto2 team to take over from Silvano Galbusera, whom Rossi has worked with since 2014.
"The first impression is very positive," Rossi said. "I already know David because he worked for our [Moto2] team. So I know the way he works. But it's very very early, especially for him.
"He needs to study and check the data to understand the way that this bike works. Because he has zero experience. But the first impression is positive, I feel good, we did already some small modifications and at the end of the day I was better than at the beginning. It's positive but we need time."
How much time?
"Difficult to say, but for me not a lot of time. Maybe the winter will be enough and after that also we need to have some experience in the race weekends. But he also has all the Japanese engineers behind him.
"Now in the modern MotoGP era this aspect [of being a crew chief] has changed a lot compared to ten or even five years ago.
"Now I have the Japanese engineers, the tyre engineers, the suspension engineers. It's more a team. In the past the chief mechanic was more alone. But now they have a lot of support from Yamaha."