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Lin Jarvis Interview, Part 2: Yamaha's Quest For A Satellite Team, And Which Concessions Would Actually Make A Difference

By David Emmett |

Where once the Japanese manufacturers dominated grand prix racing's premier class, right now, both Yamaha and Honda find themselves in the MotoGP doldrums. The man charged with turning Yamaha's fortunes around is Yamaha Motor Racing Managing Director Lin Jarvis.

In the first part of the interview I conducted with him at Silverstone, Jarvis explained why Yamaha had decided to sign Alex Rins instead of Franco Morbidelli for 2024, and why the Japanese factories are struggling. In this second part, we discuss Yamaha's plans for a satellite team, what they need to do to attract one, and the criteria they would apply. Jarvis also explains why he thinks concessions would be good for Yamaha, and exactly which concessions would help them find their competitive edge again.

Q: One of the advantages Ducati have, and they have used it really well, is the fact they have eight bikes on the grid. That means lots of data. I interviewed Gigi Dall'Igna a couple of years ago and he said data is everything to an engineer. But the other thing is they've got four factory bikes with Pramac. The impression I got from speaking to former Yamaha satellite teams is that they were always behind the factory team. It looks like Honda are using LCR, with Nakagami getting more parts. Is it more and more important for Yamaha to have a satellite team?

Lin Jarvis: We've never wanted to not have a satellite team. We just had this, how to say, differences of opinion with RNF. I We didn't have the confidence to sign up with RNF for a multi-year contract, and Aprilia did have that confidence. So that was really the factor that changed. It's the first time in my history here that we haven't had a satellite team.

So that's not by design and because we think it's best, that's just related to economics and business and, and risk. It's an evaluation of risk.

Now, we would like to come back to have a satellite team. This is our first year without a satellite team. It would be nice to come back into 2024, but in reality the right partnership for us is not available in 2024.

So we fully intend to come back in 2025, but right now we have to develop our package. Because if you want to have a relationship with a satellite team, and if they are currently – they are either going to be with a Honda or with one of the three European brands.

So we must be competitive. Otherwise, what's the motivation? They have to have confidence to sign with Yamaha, and they have to believe in Yamaha's future as well.

Q: Isn't that a bit of a chicken and egg situation also? Because, one of the things you need to help develop a bike is a satellite team?

LJ: Yes, but you know, to convince a satellite team to come, you've got to be competitive. You can't convince somebody that is currently competitive, to come and join us in this struggling process until we become competitive. So, you need to join together and be on a joint mission knowing where you're at, knowing what you're going to do, having the good conditions, the correct conditions, the right riders in their team, and your team. It's a whole collaboration of working together. And, I think that we should be ready in 2025 to come back.

Q: Have you started talking to teams? Or is that a process that will have to wait for next year? When's the ideal time to start discussing?

Yamaha
MotoGP
Silverstone, Great Britain
CormacGP
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Comments

"chicken and egg situation" indeed, David. Thanks for this two-part interview with Lin: his words make a lot of sense and show, at least, a will to do better for the future and with little consideration about pride, which I think is really important right now.

Interesting statements re: RNF and their confidence in the team surviving, from what I am reading. I do appreciate that Lin is pretty frank about things such as that, and about how they're always talking with teams and riders. Like yeah we all know they do so, but many PR-facing people will be naturally be cagey about that kind of thing.

But like David has written about before on this site, I never got the impression that Yamaha really cared about their satellite team; it was simply "here's last year's bikes, thanks bye". I know it's not easy to supply extra factory bikes or every team would have them, but Yamaha definitely seem like they need to change their approach to how they treat the sat team.

I think Jarvis might be referring to the following: 

Pit Beirer (on Yamaha and Honda): “They are valid and proud factories; they will find their technical path. But they don’t need ‘concessions’ to do so.” (from GPOne).

Jarvis (from David's interview): “But those times have passed. In business these days, you have no time for that.”

I think Jarvis has a valid insight. The cost of time investment toward a successful business case is compelling for the whole sport and not just for a couple of teams. Concessions were intended to shorten the time it took for a new factory to become competitive; an incentive to invest in the sport despite long odds. And an accommodation by the organizers and teams to quickly create a more engaging fan experience (market exposure). Yamaha and Honda today may not need incentives against long odds, but the sport could benefit from a shorter time to rebalance.

No question that the European factories, even with past concessions, have invested in their current success disproportionately to their (standalone) market value/unit sales. Understandable they don’t want to give a free pass to competitors with much larger markets.

But If the goal is to speed up the return to a better fan experience (the bottom line) can we formulate a “put your money where your mouth is” model?

Let designated factories that meet some metric of need “pay for” concessions. Make the price a seriously painful amount to prove the motives and commitment of those purchasing concessions. Put a cap on what's possible.  Extra practice, including factory riders, and tire allotments are one possibility. Use the income to benefit the whole sport, other teams, satellites, whatever.

If there is one thing that might tell us honestly what Yamaha and Honda (corporate) are willing to do to make up for lost time spent with moribund development methods it is probably spelled “¥”.

Concessions or not...turning up is alone a serious commitment.

Ducati were a top team (champions 2007) who lost their way and enjoyed concessions until losing them in 2016. Suzuki too. At least Suzuki could be considered a new team....maybe not. 2017 worked out better for Ducati than Yamaha. Etc etc. Aprilia and KTM were new. Either way, same for Ducati, same for Yamaha or Honda. However, they have podiums so by the old measure they shouldn't get.

I think asking for payment is an interesting idea. One of the reasons the tire allocation got reduced is because Michelin have to bear the cost of all the tires, and the teams weren't using them all. Maybe giving a factory with concessions extra tires for testing, but making them cover the cost of those tires, is a good compromise.

Paying for your own tires seems like a minimum. I was also thinking of something above and beyond absorbing the incremental costs of expanded testing — that isn't tied directly to activities of the concession team(s). How about some serious funding to improve the sport. Young rider programs/ride scholarships to create more gender and racial diversity at the entry level? Something that is contributing to the public good might make it more acceptable to the other teams, and have some PR upside for the factories paying for those concessions.

Not a terrible idea to contemplate.  Perhaps include a $ per testing lap outside of a race weekend thing as part of the concessions?  Plus actual costs (tires, fuel, whatever).  If engine limits are relaxed, they likewise come with a significant $ (plus grid penalties?) each.  Areo same?  Extra revs?  There ought to be some way to help balance the field for low performance factories I suppose. 

And then where should the $ go?  Back to Michelin?  The teams?  The lowest placed teams?  Lots to ponder.

I disagree, I think that there should be a cost cap or at least put a cap on money that comes from sponsorship. KTM is just simply lucky that they have fellow Austrian red bull willing to invest in them so now,they are outspending the rest of the paddock. No amount of hard work, cunning whatever can create what KTM and red bull have. 

I see merit in developing and allowing a concessions criteria to help the falling stars be competitive. If they don’t the reality is that they’ll use sprint races and Sunday to develop their bikes. MM93 has already admitted to this and it’s not much of a show if 2/5ths of the manufacturers aren’t really there to race.

Perverse disincentives would act like fines for failure. Sure, paying for extra tyres (as well as all the circuit and team costs) makes sense. I don’t see how we can propose adding to the already high cost of participation. It really is simple - let teams test against a formula of points gained in the championship from all bikes running the brand. 2 bikes would equal an effective free pass; 4 bikes balanced against points achieved last year ~ probably compensated by recent past and current year performance. 6 or 8 bikes would be fixed at current level.

This should be facilitated by permission ( a rule) for any rider to work for any team on testing duties - that’s a double-edged sword but could be interesting for riders like the VR46 crew who are penalised by non-factory deals and tempted to risk a move.

I’m not so sure RNF is a secure well-funded team and there might be others looking at participating, such as BMW, or a Chinese team perhaps. Maybe FHO are just practicing in BSB and on the roads….

Yet again I'm forced to concede that F1 has a decent system. Aero testing time is based on the previous years results; the top team only gets 70% of the baseline, and the worst team gets 115%. This also gets re-evaluated a couple times during the year, so it's not static for an entire season. Something in this vein would definitely help I think. It's like an indirect Balance of Performance, except it's still up to the teams to deliver, same as any other concessions.

Motomann - That's another interesting take on this, as is the formula you propose. You're right in pointing out the need to not penalize new teams. The current talk in the paddock is specifically about concessions for Yamaha and Honda, where the pushback from the other teams includes, in part, why should deep pocket, established factories get any breaks. Since the European teams have talked specifically about Yamaha and Honda; maybe they could agree to a one or two year program, just for them. Charge enough (beyond their direct costs) to put in a kitty to help future incoming teams. It would take some doing (and maybe an economist) to come up with a solution : -)

Hi Merlin. It might take a bit of a wizard to sort it out. What goes around comes around and it was painful watching Ducati struggle until their wizard arrived. Factories have deeper pockets simply because they have to invest to succeed. Sponsors and satellite teams can pick the winners much as Ducati enjoys now. A sensible system would allow balancing across eras and the concessions system worked quite well for Ducati, Suzuki, and Kawasaki. Scott Smart, or maybe Simon Crafar, or people I don’t know who are technically astute could surely come up with a tweakable formula that doesn’t require constant unanimous agreements with teams who have games to play.