Burgess: Yamaha listened.

It's normal in the grand prix world for a new rider to bring at least one of his favoured mechanics, team helpers or personal assistants to his new team - but for Valentino Rossi things were a little different, and the Yamaha Factory Team was heavily revamped when he joined for 2004.

No less than four of Rossi's Repsol Honda pit crew moved with the Italian - led by Jerry Burgess, undoubtedly the most successful crew chief of his generation.

Burgess - universally known as 'JB' - has been Rossi's crew chief since he joined the premier class in 2000, and before that was behind premier-class successes for Wayne Gardner and Mick Doohan.

Quick witted and acerbic if necessary, Burgess is as Aussie as they come, and has a crew to match, most of whom are fellow Antipodeans. Burgess' own reasons for moving to Yamaha were entirely human and he's also able to identify the main reason for Rossi's instant M1 success.

"I came (to Yamaha) because I wanted the challenge," he remarked. "To a degree I felt that if anybody had the potential to be successful, then working with Valentino would help them to maximise that potential.

"If Yamaha were going to listen to Valentino and myself then we would move forward," he declared. "If they weren't going to listen then there was no point in hiring Valentino Rossi. Mr Furusawa did listen to him and we have finished our first season together as World Champions - an A+ report card!"

Many of the men in the garage spend a large amount of their lives on the opposite side of the globe from their homes; MotoGP for them is like a tough boarding school, with never-ending coursework and highly public exams every other weekend. As Burgess explains, that's part of the reason why they are successful.

"You have to think about winning," said Burgess, "so we don't come 12,000 miles from Australia just to pick up the pay check. We're not going home on Monday morning after the race. We're here for the duration. So we're keen to hit the whole show pretty hard.

"We don't go to the racetrack each weekend hoping to win, we expect to win," he stated. "If we finish second, third or fourth then we have to know the reasons why. I don't mind finishing second or third as long as I know the reasons why. If we finish second and have no problems then we are in big trouble. If we're second and we have problems then over time we will be able to fix those problems."

Rossi, Burgess and Yamaha will remain together to defend their latest world crown in 2005 when, if Rossi is again successful, he will have matched Doohan's record of five consecutive premier-class world championships.