2019 MotoGP Discussion (No links)
- Thread starter Winales_2017
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Well, not "out", but the plan is evidently to use the first few races of 2020 (current contract) for him to make a decision about 2021. He has an option to continue in 2021 with a factory-spec bike and support but he won't be in the official factory team.
I suspect that Rossi will retire after 2020.
Bringing Quartararo onto the factory team was the right move.
I suspect that Rossi will retire after 2020.
Bringing Quartararo onto the factory team was the right move.
Winales_2017
Well-known member
It looks like its an end of an era, and while this is a good rider pair for Yamaha with JLO on rider development (FINALLY!) I can't see Rossi taking the Petronas seat, either. Its going to effectively be a Vinales led team, with Fabio learinng the ropes and hopefully taking the helm soon after with a JLO developed bike.
I wanted to see Mav at a resurgent Suzuki with Rins, or even at Ducati with Miller, but given all he has put up with at Yamaha it was time he got his role as Team lead with JLO as his test rider.
I think if Dovi doesn't have a real chance of a title by Assen this year he will probably announce his retirement, too. This a young man's game, and it can't be the same floundering about for Top 10 on a factory bike capable of podiums every weekend as it is vying for the championship--though Dovi never really was a contender in my opinion.
While Rossi has definitely calmed down ego-wise the last few years, I cannot see him riding on a satellite team, unless it's his own, but moving a team into GP takes a lot of preparation to do right VR46 is not ready. With all that said, I don't see VR riding next year - he will retire.
Winales_2017
Well-known member
See, I'm not so sure about the 'prepared' part, provided they have some factory support; look at MarcVDS, they have essentially dominated Moto2 championships even had the same rider from one category to the next, but their GP Team was an utter failure and ran out of funds i an embarrassing manner. That's not to say riders like Jack Miller didn't benefit from getting a ride, but look what it did to Lüthi (I just think they're a spec racing outfit); by contrast, look at what the Petronas Team have achieved in just their first year with some factory support (first with Franco and then Fabio once he cemented his role) and a star rider like Fabio to make it all come together--it must be hard for Jarvis to see how often Fabio outscored the works Team week after week.
I think its more along the lines of how close are Yamaha to winning a championship without him in 2021, and is it worth extending support to yet another satellite Team. If I'm honest, I think if he did the Sky46 thing and some how still decides to ride for it himself, it would be a pairing with Ducati not Yamaha. The amount of outpouring that would mean in sponsorship, merchandise money and Media exposure (Sky Italia is probably as big as Movistar+ was) would probably far outweigh anything Yamaha could bring to the table--which is probably sure to be a Mav/JLO spec bike like in '17, which Rossi has made it clear he doesn't do well on. Also, I'm guessing the big wigs at Iwata are tired of hearing the endless bitching, from both riders to be honest, that they'd probably just want to move on with their new stars.
It'll be odd to not see those massive plumes of yellow at Mugello or San Marino anymore, but seeing him in the back is probably not the way most of you want to see him either, so...
a factory Yamaha bike with VR46 ownership?
machine should be competitive enough, and that strokes his ego
don't think you're gonna see this guy ride away into the sunset for some time yet
This assumes Yamaha would be prepared to go with 5 factory spec bikes - 2 for factory team; 2 for SRT; 1 for VR46
This would be the first time in the 4-stroke era that Yamaha would have more than 4 full time bikes in the grid (not counting the forward yamaha open spec bike). I think Yamaha would do it under the right circumstances BUT this issue is more about precedent. What does Yamaha do when VR46 steps up to be a 2 rider team. What will they then do? I'd love to see 6 Yamahas, but again, Yamaha have never had more than 4. Is Yamaha or SRT willing to take on older spec machinery, alleviating some pressure for Yamaha? I don't see it. SRT has deep pockets, and VR46 has brand value. It will be interesting to see what happens.
With respect to the preparation, this was more an observation that teams that come up to GP usually plan it out for more than a year - with the 2 largest items being securing funding (in the case of vr46, is Sky willing to sponsor them AND aprilia?), the contracts with a manufacturer (VR46 do not have a deal with any manufacturer to support two bikes). I will concede VR46 can probably still make it work, but nothing has been announced yet, and that makes me a bit skeptical. This is moreso about VR46 team moving up vs Rossi the rider on a pseudo Factory team like when he was with Nastro Azzuro Honda.
Re: MarcVDS, they didn't run out of funds. That was basically an implosion resulting from 2 major issues - 1. Honda gave them previous year bikes with little support, and that bike was difficult to get results with, and 2. Marc VanderStraten got into a legal battle with Michael Bartolemy (VDS claimed MB was embezzling funds, which turned out to not be true) who was both a team princple but also owned parts of the team, and more importantly, owned the Honda leases, so when Bartolemy was terminated, it by extension terminated the Honda leases with MarcVDS. I assume through the power of Dorna, MarcVDS was able to keep using the bikes for the remainder of the year.
It was an absolute shame to see because MarcVDS was the most well funded satellite team on the grid (MVDS was very wealthy and was likely losing money on the team, but by all accounts, he could afford it) and could have been a solid long term participant
