According to motocuatro.
com Yamaha has decided to buy out reigning World Champion Jorge Lorenzo’s personal sponsor contract with Rockstar.
The move was made in order to make way for Monster Energy who will be co-sponsoring the Yamaha team along with Eneos in 2013 to avoid any conflict of interest between the two energy drink companies.
When Yamaha announced they had signed on Valentino Rossi who is sponsored by Monster, it seemed that the two different sponsors could co-exist, just like they did with Lorenzo and Ben Spies, but Monster Energy became interesting in the idea sponsoring Rossi’s bike, which in return sparked the interest of Rockstar (they just extended their personal contract with the 2012 World champion for two more years) who want to sponsor Lorenzo’s M1, which would have brought into Yamaha’s coffers about 3 million euros in energy drink sponsorship cash, 1.
5 million by each brand, but with a team once again divided, but this time not by wall, but by different sponsors.
During the final race of the season at Valencia, Monster Energy changed their offer wanting to co-sponsor the entire team – including Lorenzo, apparently because they didn’t want to risk that a rival brand could get more pubblicity with Lorenzo’s results and who will be defending his title.
With this final move Yamaha was forced to put into play a conflict of interest clause, where a rider’s personal sponsor cannot be in conflict with the team’s sponsor, but Yamaha will now have to pay off Rockstar and also give Lorenzo the money he was supposed to receive from the energy drink company, which is about 1 million euros per year.
Monster will now be paying around 4 million euros to co-sponsor the team, including the 1 million euros that will be going directly into Lorenzo’s bank account, plus what they currently pay Valentino Rossi.
Between Monster Energy and Eneos, the Yamaha factory will be raking in around 7 million euros, almost the same amount they received from Fiat back in 2010.
Monster also will continue to be Yamaha Tech3’s title sponsor and continue to personally sponsor other riders in all three categories.