Lin Jarvis in awe of what Yamaha have ‘miraculously’ done before 2025 MotoGP season

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Lin Jarvis is taking a step back at the Yamaha MotoGP team this season. Having first joined in 1998, he left his team principal role at the end of last year.

Jarvis will remain involved with the Yamaha organisation. But instead of running things, he’ll be an advisor who only attends select races.

Speaking on the Paddock Pass Podcast, he said it would have been difficult to leave at the end of 2023 when Yamaha entered a decline. Fabio Quartararo won the world championship in ’21 and finished as the runner-up ’22, but then tumbled down to 10th.

Quartararo only managed 13th last year but there were signs towards the end of the season that Yamaha were back on the right trajectory. Their franchise rider scored a season-best P6 at the penultimate round in Malaysia, having caught the eye in Sprint with P5.

This year, Yamaha will also introduce their V4 engine. They were the last holdout for the inline four, but they’ll finally align with their competitors.

All of this feeds Jarvis’ sense of optimism as he hands the reigns to Paolo Pavesio. Thanks to the concessions, Yamaha can field their full-time riders in the Sepang shakedown this weekend.

Lin Jarvis can’t believe Yamaha have secured Pramac deal

Perhaps the biggest off-season change for Yamaha is the addition of Pramac to their stable. The Italians join as an ‘independent second factory team’ after parting with Ducati.

Last season, Pramac fielded the riders’ world champion in Jorge Martin. They were the first satellite squad to achieve this feat in the MotoGP era.

A year earlier, Martin and Johann Zarco delivered the teams’ title. This is clearly an elite-level operation.

Yamaha haven’t had a second-in-command team since RNF, who switched to Aprilia at the end of 2022 before dropping off the grid. It will be invaluable for the development of their bike, doubling their data-gathering potential.

“Quite miraculously, we managed to get Pramac as an independent second factory team,” Jarvis reflected. “If you’d have told me that 12 months ago – honestly, if you’d told me that six months ago – I’d have said, ‘yeah right’, you’re kidding’.

“But that became a reality. Now we’ve signed [Miguel] Oliviera, we’ve signed [Jack] Miller.”

Ducati are already ruing the loss of Pramac and Francesco Bagnaia comments show it

This is doubly good news for Yamaha. It strengthens their operation, and weakens the Ducati juggernaut.

Speaking during the off-season, Francesco Bagnaia called Pramac a ‘big loss’. He believes Ducati’s success is partly down to having ‘eight bikes and eight riders’.

Yamaha’s long-term goal is, of course, to catch the Bologna Bullets. They may have to wait until the 2027 regulation changes before they can do that.

Pramac have signed a deal with Alpine, though that’s more of a commercial arrangement than a technical tie-up. The French manufacturer’s logo will likely be visible on their bike during Friday’s dual Yamaha launch.