As things are becoming clearer, it seems useful to us to take a complete look at the situation of the new structure which will participate in the MotoGP world championship next season.
This was made official on July 5 by an agreement between the team Angel Nieto Racing (ANRT) and the Sepang International Circuit (SIC) according to which SIC will take over ANRT's two places in the MotoGP™ category from the 2019 season. Jorge Martínez "Aspar", current owner of the 2 aforementioned places, will take the position of Sports Advisor of this new MotoGP team.
In the wake, Yamaha Motor Co.Ltd announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Sepang International Circuit (SIC) under which the team will have Yamaha YZR-M1 motorcycles for the 2019, 2020 and 2021 FIM MotoGP World Championship seasons as satellite team.
Concretely, we will therefore have a new structure in which Jorge Martínez “Aspar” will only have an honorary role while the real power will be held on the one hand by the representative of the Sepang International Circuit, Dato' Razlan Razali, also in charge of relations with the future sponsor Petronas and helped by his right arm Johan Stigefelt, on the other hand by Yamaha who intends to keep a certain decision-making power over this satellite team.
It is also for this reason that we were able to announce to you first the probable appointment of Wilco Zeelenberg as team manager of this new structure (see here), announcement which was subsequently confirmed.
Once this was put in place with Dorna's blessing, the nomination of the 2 pilots took a little more time because if the name of Franco Morbidelli appeared from the start of the project, that of his teammate went through several phases, including first Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa before arriving at Fabio Quartararo.
This surname sequence could seem somewhat strange, but it can be explained by the financial and technical pretensions of the first 2 drivers cited which are impossible to assume by the future Malaysian sponsor who, contrary to what its presence in F1 might suggest, does not intend to investing completely pharaonic sums of money in MotoGP.
As a result, after not being able to retain the loyalty of these two Top Guns, the new structure decided to completely change direction and focus on the future by creating a real junior team giving a chance to two young hopefuls. It is for this reason that the name of Fabio Quartararo, currently only 19 years old, appeared to finally establish himself in the project.
Just like for Franco Morbidelli, the agreement is now concluded and the announcement formalizing the 2 drivers will take place this week: there will be 2 French riders in MotoGP in 2019!
To be more complete, and without mentioning theformalization of Petronas as title sponsor which will take place in a 3rd phase, we can be interested in the technical managers who will accompany Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo.
Alongside the first, there should hardly be any surprises because we will find Diego Gubellini, who is already currently working with the Italian after a long experience acquired by exercising his talent with Daijiro Kato, Sete Gibernau, Alex Barros, Shynia Nakano, Alex De Angelis, Marco Melandri, Colin Edwards, Hiroshi Aoyama, Michele Pirro, Scott Redding and Stefan Bradl.
To support Fabio Quartararo in his first steps in MotoGP, the name of Gilles Bigot, currently with Tom Luthi in MotoGP within the Marc VDS team, had been considered, not only because the French technician also has very strong experience built for example in 1999 with Alex Criville when he was 500cc world champion, but also because his calm, his patience, his pedagogy and his native language would make him an ideal interlocutor for a Rookie in MotoGP.
Things seemed to be heading in this direction until early July when it became clear that Maverick Vinales would not go back for one more season with Ramón Forcada (see here).
As a result, it is entirely possible that he, “replaced by Yamaha”, will take charge of the development of Fabio Quartararo’s motorcycles. This will still require that this project interests the Spanish technician, so we will have to wait at least for the Czech Republic Grand Prix to know who will technically manage the two Yamaha M1s allocated to the French rider.
Regarding the latter, Lynn Jarvis did not hide that their specification levels would be proportional to the money invested in their rental, but that in no case could they experience the same development as the factory motorcycles (see here).
All in all quite logically, we therefore expect bikes that are a little more advanced for Franco Morbidelli than for Fabio Quartararo, a bit like those currently made available for Johann zarco compared to those ofHafiz Syahrin.
The new team having ensured the supply of Yamahas for 3 years, this situation could obviously evolve over time…
Finally, at the logistical level, the new team should be based in Belgium, under the responsibility of Roger Van Der Borght, former coordinator of the HRC team ousted by Livio Suppo and currently working for the British Talent Cup.
Note: As usual, this information that we have collected in the paddock is the latest at the time we publish these lines, but may still evolve over the coming days and will not be definitively confirmed until the moment where they will be official, which is not quite the case yet…
Fabio “El Diablo” Quartararo:
Born April 20, 1999 in Nice.
Winners:
- 2007: 2e of the Spain 50 championship cm3
- 2008: 3e of the Spain 50 championship cm3
- 2009: Spanish Champion 70 cm3
- 2010: 3e of the Spain 80 championship cm3
- 2011: Spanish Champion 80 cm3
- 2012: Spanish Champion 125 cm3 pre Moto 3
- 2013: Spanish Moto3 speed champion
- 2014: Spanish Moto3 speed champion (modification of the regulations to access the GP)
- 2015: 10e of the Moto3 World Speed Championship
- 2016: 13e of the Moto3 World Speed Championship
- 2017: 13e of the Moto2 World Speed Championship
- 2018: 9th in the Moto2 World Speed Championship (ongoing)
