Yamaha Racing manager Lin Jarvis has finally announced the names of the two riders who will be racing a private Yamaha M1 next season, with the SIC Petronas Yamaha team. One of the riders is Franco Morbidelli, who is fighting with Hafizh Syahrin for the “Rookie of the Year” in MotoGP, and the other rider will be Fabio Quartararo who races in Moto2.
As for Morbidelli, his future was known for months now. Being a VR46 Academy rider and having the blessing of Valentino Rossi himself, the current Moto2 champion is facing his first year in MotoGP with confidence, and was surely going to continue in this class in the future.
Fabio Quartararo on the other hand, is a fresh young talent rising in Moto2 this season, and Lin Jarvis believes SIC Petronas Yamaha has made a good choice, even if Quartararo hasn’t shown always what he can do, but he is a talent and Yamaha is happy to secure him and see what he will be able to do with just 19 years in MotoGP.
And if anyone has thought that Yamaha Japan had something to do with the signing of Morbidelli and Quartararo by the SIC Petronas Yamaha team, Lin Jarvis leaves it very clear that “we haven’t chosen the riders ourselves. We approved them, and we know they’ve got the level needed to race an M1 bike”, said Jarvis, meaning that the decision to sign both of them was entirely made by the SIC Petronas structure.
The team also had other options besides Morbidelli and Quartararo. First it was Jorge Lorenzo, who then signed for Repsol Honda, then it was Dani Pedrosa, but the Spanish rider decided to quit racing at the end of the season, and in the last few weeks SIC Petronas Yamaha was also in talks with Alvaro Bautista.