The Honda-employed former Suzuki MotoGP team-mates Joan Mir and Alex Rins are now the chief alternative candidates for Yamaha’s second factory seat, currently occupied by Franco Morbidelli, for 2024.
This is according to The Race’s sources in the paddock, with both factory Honda rider Mir and LCR Honda rider Rins believed to have exit clauses that would allow them to replace Morbidelli should the Japanese factory decide to look elsewhere.
There have been months of speculation this year about the beleaguered Yamaha team’s second seat, with Morbidelli’s out-of-sync deal set to conclude at the end of the current season – but with options to replace him limited due to the two-year 2023-24 contracts signed by so much of the grid.
However, it seems there might now be a possible exit route for either Mir or Rins, with the pair believed to have an option within their respective contracts that would allow them to leave Honda after only a single year – an option that must look increasingly tempting given the absolutely dire state of things at the brand.
While Yamaha might be struggling to regain the performance that took Fabio Quartararo to championship victory in 2021, things look exponentially harder for Honda’s current crop of racers thanks to an RC213V that isn’t just as slow as Yamaha’s M1 but also considerably more crash-prone.
That situation has reached such a critical point now that neither 2020 world champion Mir nor this year’s Grand Prix of the Americas winner Rins were able to address the rumours ahead of this weekend’s Dutch TT at Assen, with both of them currently recuperating from injuries sustained at Mugello two weeks ago.
Rins in particular has come off the worst, having to undergo a – successful – second surgery on Thursday to remove the external fixation device attached to his badly broken leg and replace it with internal pins.
Yamaha’s move to try and poach either of the former Suzuki pair would make complete sense given their backgrounds in the series, with Rins and Mir among only a limited number of racers in the championship with recent experience of an inline-four engine configuration, a specification that is now unique to the Iwata brand following Suzuki’s decision to withdraw from MotoGP at the end of 2022.
There also remains the option of retaining Morbidelli, of course – something that arguably has increased in likelihood in recent weeks thanks to his improving form. Still far distant from the 2020 efforts that pushed Mir close in the championship race, he has nonetheless been a match for Quartararo in the past few races.
When asked at Assen about what his future holds, however, the Italian didn’t say much, simply reminding the media that team boss Lin Jarvis is at this weekend’s Dutch race – echoing the replies he gave when questioned at the Italian Grand Prix 10 days ago.
Team-mate Quartararo similarly didn’t get drawn too deeply into the discussion about who he wants to see on the other side of the garage next year.
“I don’t care at all,” he replied when asked by The Race. “I think that whoever comes – or stays – in the team, I don’t really have a preference. Of course I prefer someone who has experience in MotoGP, but about the person I don’t really care.”
