Don’t you just love it when head honchos like Lin Jarvis of Yamaha try to pull the wool over your eyes? The Yamaha manager who does the actual negotiations and signs contracts with the riders in a interview with Italian sport’s daily Gazzetta dello Sport has revealed that he wants announce the 2011 Yamaha line-up at the upcoming Brno GP and that there is an offer on the table for Valentino Rossi, who has yet, according to Jarvis given Yamaha a reply.
When Valentino Rossi in the post race show Fuori Giri after the Sachsenring GP, was asked by Marco Lucchinelli why Yamaha was letting him go the Italian champion edged around the question, and then laughingly said that they (Yamaha) was probably letting him go because he’s too old.
Jarvis went on the record as saying; “We have no intention of sending away Rossi, We’ve put up an offer on which we are waiting for a reply, and there are no problems with his age, Valentino is and remains a winning rider” said Jarvis.
“I can’t supply details on the negotiations.
But we feel the offer to be absolutely acceptable; obviously this is our evaluation.
” Regarding Jorge Lorenzo who’s contract is also up for renewal and just last month reported that he hasn’t had any proposals from Yamaha, unlike what Jarvis said to the Gazzetta dello Sport: “There is a proposal and I could define the negotiations to be at a good point.
We’d like to have everything in place by Brno, in order to announce the 2011 team” which will include Yamaha Tech3 rider Ben Spies.
“Should one of our two riders leave, he would certainly be in the works team,” said Jarvis.
“We are convinced we’ll have a winning team in 2011 too.
”And the question of Jeremy Burgess leaving Yamaha to follow Rossi to Ducati, the Yamaha manager was much more subtle stating that: “We believe it’s a great combination and that we would like to confirm.
I’m convinced that he’ll stay with us … if Rossi decides to stay.
”Unless a cataclysmic event that changes MotoGP over the next twenty days, we really think that Rossi and Burgess will be in red next year,with new Italian rumors coming out, that Davide Brivio will be with them and that Massimo Meregalli of the Yamaha SBK team will be running Ben Spies’ side of the factory team.