MotoGP | Jarvis: “I was surprised by RNF’s announcement”

The RNF team announced its farewell to Yamaha at the end of the season on Friday, to embark on a new path with Aprilia, which for the first time since it has been in MotoGP will have a satellite team on the starting grid. The decision of the team managed by Razlan Razali left the Yamaha leaders a bit stunned, who found themselves faced with the fait accompli without having been warned before the announcement. Thus, the Iwata manufacturer will find itself in 2023 to have only two bikes on the track, a particular situation compared to what we were used to seeing in recent years.

Lin Jarvis said that the choice took him by surprise, recognizing that losing two bikes is not what a team dreams of for their work: “It’s not the ideal situation, we’ve always had satellite teams, from what I remember. We’ve always had more than two bikes on the grid and it’s never nice when you get to the end of a relationship. We will be together until the end of the season, but RNF has made the decision to switch to Aprilia for the future, we respect the decision. I was a little surprised by the announcement, because it came out while we were in a meeting with them and hearing about the decision was a bit unusual. We respect the decision and start from there ”.

Andrea Dovizioso, RNF MotoGP Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

A cold shower for Yamaha, therefore, which received the news just when it was in a meeting with RNF. Lin Jarvis takes note of this and reflects on the work to be done in the factory team to recover the technical gap that the M1 has with regard to the Desmosedici above all: “We will have two bikes on the grid next year, obviously we have always had satellite teams. In fact, all the other teams in the MotoGP paddock have contracts with the manufacturers. There are no alternatives right now, but that’s okay for us. We focus on the factory team and try to gain speed, we will focus on making our bike better. It’s okay and we are confident that we can do it even with only two riders ”.

The satellite team, as we know, is the litmus test for the official team, which in addition to concentrating on the factory box also counts on the work of the team that relies on it. More data is always valuable to improve and make progress. Yamaha will not be able to take advantage of this wild card next year, having only two bikes, the official M1s of Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo.

However, Lin Jarvis doesn’t make a big deal out of it: “The basic idea of ​​having a satellite team is to get more data by having more bikes on the grid, perhaps in a similar speed zone. The second advantage is that you can have rookies. Our factory team is the perfect example at the moment, a few years ago the SIC team brought us Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo. They arrived and then moved on to the official team. Not having a satellite team makes the job of finding new talents more difficult ”.

“It will be an inconvenience, but we have two great drivers, young and fast. It won’t be a big deal right now. In terms of more data, unfortunately this year the difference between Fabio’s speed and that of the other riders is not similar. For this reason, we haven’t used the satellite team’s data a lot this year. In an ideal situation they would be closer and we would have a benefit, but honestly if we look at this and next year, I don’t see a big disadvantage ”, concludes Jarvis.

Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images