It’s long been an open secret within the MotoGP paddock and beyond that Valentino Rossi was all but certain to remain in the series in 2021 with the Petronas SRT Yamaha squad, with The Race first reporting on the rumours back in February.
However, it took until last weekend at the Catalan Grand Prix, eight months later, before the parties were finally ready to confirm what we all knew and make public the final details of the contract that will keep the nine-time world champion in MotoGP for another year at least.
According to Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis, the very different nature of Rossi’s place within Yamaha’s satellite team means that the deal took longer to hash out than previous efforts.
“It’s a long process to bring together because it’s complicated,” he admitted after confirmation finally came before qualifying at Barcelona on Saturday.
“Normally the contract is just between us and Vale, and every renewal is a simple process – what’s changed, what needs changing, OK done.
“This time we’ve changed it because he’ll remain a Yamaha rider but we had to place him into the Petronas team.
“Valentino is not a normal rider – he’s a commodity” :: Razlan Razali
“We have our legal, they have their legal, Valentino has his legal. Bringing together Japanese, Malaysians and Italians wasn’t easy but we got it done.
“I’m glad we got it done because it’s so important for MotoGP – it would be so wrong if he had to stop in this COVID-influenced year.”
Petronas Yamaha boss Razlan Razali went into further detail about just what those complications were in an exclusive conversation with The Race.
“Valentino is not a normal rider – he’s a commodity,” Razlan said, and that has become increasingly apparent as Rossi has expanded his VR46 business beyond merchandising sales into a vast commercial empire.
“There are rights involved with him, there are three parties involved and it’s not an easy deal.
“He has trademark rights, we have to check with our title partner that they’re all protected, and of course the discussion about his technical guys is something we have to be sure about.
“Finally when there’s light at the end of the tunnel, Yamaha had to come up with contracts.
“When Valentino said he wanted to announce it in Barcelona, that pushed them to get going a little, we did the same, we burnt the midnight oil after Misano 2, and we got it done.
“It’s a big contract – compared to the other riders, it’s four times as large! He was definitely slower than me in initialling it, though!”
It’s a deal that’s been further complicated by finding out how to best accommodate staffing requests from Rossi.
Unique in that he’s worked with not only the same engineers but has travelled between teams with the same mechanics for his entire career, that caused conflict with Petronas.
Razali was unwilling to break up his own tight-knit squad to make room for Rossi (especially with him only on a one-year deal). The eventual compromise was to allow his crew chief and data engineer to join, replacing the duo set to move up to the factory team with Fabio Quartararo.
“Honestly I think it’s better than being in the factory team. We want to win but we want to have fun too” :: Razlan Razali
“We had a condition at the beginning that we wanted to create as little disruption as possible to the structure we had created,” Razali said.
“We didn’t want him bringing his whole crew with him. He could bring his key crew, and that’s why his crew chief and data guy are coming.”
The Malaysian team boss is also confident that while the move might be seen by some fans as a demotion for Rossi, moving from a factory to a satellite team for the first time since 2001, it’s something that Petronas can make work for him.
Rossi is set to ride full-factory 2021 machines of the same spec as the bikes Maverick Vinales and Fabio Quartararo will ride in works colours next year and is still set to play a key role in developing the M1.
He will also benefit from having fewer of the pressures that come from being a factory rider.
With Rossi joining a young friendly, race-winning, team, as team-mate to his protege Franco Morbidelli, with none of the commitments to Yamaha management that he’s had to live by for the best part of 20 years across his various factory teams, Razali is confident that it’s an atmosphere that can actually allow the MotoGP legend to go even faster than he currently is.
“It’s wrong to assume we want him because of his popularity – we want him because of his enthusiasm to continue, his wish to be competitive and to try and win races,” said Razali.
“We’ll try our best to help him with that, and we thank him for putting his trust in us. It can’t be easy to switch from factory to us, but he’s seen what we’ve done in our first two years.
“He has Franky to testify for us too. Hopefully that makes him confident and assured about coming to us, and honestly I think it’s better than being in the factory team.
“We don’t work in a factory way. We have experienced people but the atmosphere is very different – we want to win but we want to have fun too.”
