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EXCLUSIVE: Lin Jarvis Interview - Part 1, From Bantams To Burnout To Biaggi

By David Emmett |

On December 31st, 2024, Lin Jarvis stepped down as Managing Director of Yamaha Motor Racing, the organization that runs Yamaha's MotoGP project. In the 26 years that Jarvis has been in charge, Yamaha have known incredible success. Eight rider titles, with Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, and Fabio Quartararo, as well as six manufacturer and seven team titles. Under Jarvis, Yamaha won the triple crown five times, in 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2015.

Jarvis has managed some of the biggest names in the sport, including Max Biaggi, Carlos Checa, Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Ben Spies, and Fabio Quartararo. He has seen the highest highs and sometimes, the lowest lows. And after a difficult couple of seasons, he leaves Yamaha as they are rebuilding for the future.

It has been a very long and storied career. At the second Misano round last year, I sat down to take a long look back at his career with Lin Jarvis. He spoke at length about how he got interested in motorcycles, how he ended up running Yamaha's MotoGP project, and more. Jarvis talked about dealing with Max Biaggi, managing Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, and how difficult managing the fallout of 2015 was. Plus, he talks about missing out on Casey Stoner and Nicky Hayden.

The entire interview is to be published over the next three days. In the first part of the interview, Jarvis talks about how he got started, losing all his possessions in Rome, suffering burnout from pushing himself too hard, and managing Max Biaggi and Carlos Checa.

In The Beginning

Q: First of all, why motorcycles? How did you end up being involved in motorbikes?

Lin Jarvis: My father’s fault. My father was always into two-wheeled sports, bicycles and then motorcycles. He was an amateur trials rider. So, he basically got me riding trials, or let’s say introduced me, gave me the opportunity to ride trials when I was young. So I started really on a trials bike when I was probably 15, I guess, something like that. Prior to that, I’d been bashing around an orchard on a BSA Bantam with mates and stuff like that.

Q: The BSA Bantam was the first motorbike I rode as well.

LJ: The first one I ever rode as well, in my mate’s orchard. It was nice.

Q: At that point, did you think this is what I want to be involved in the rest of my life? Or was it just sort of something you loved doing?

Yamaha
Lin Jarvis
MotoGP
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Comments

Very interesting. I especially like the precautionary tale about over-work. It's great that Lin survived his career, but it's mental that he estimates that he spent the better part of a decade fighting a self inflicted illness! 

 

Very cool to read about Carlos Checa again :-) Known to his fans as....

My younger son and I were at MotoGP Philip Island 2004. Drove there so Sunday arvo we were hanging around waiting for the traffic to ease off. Standing on the grid looking over pitwall. My 8yo offspring sees our hero and calls out "Careless Chucker ! " Checa turns around and walks straight over to us. I wondered until Carlos smiled at us. We had a great conversation, got an autograph or two. No selfie. Checa is a good human being. 

I saw him on the Ducati superbike at Philip Island years later. It was so cool to see Carlos 7 win a world championship. The year after didn't go so well iirc.

Thanks for the article Kropotkin, you are a prince. I hope you are fully recovered. Don't push yourself to hard. The Sepang test will be on soon enough 

A biography penned by DE and recanted by LJ would get my money ( spoken as a careful spender!).

As apical says though, don’t do a Jarvis….