The long-standing Managing Director of Yamaha Motor Racing, Lin Jarvis, is reportedly set to step down from his position at the end of 2024.
Jarvis, who began in his role as Yamaha Motor Racing MD back in 1999, is set to retire at the end of the year, according to Autosport.
Jarvis, 66, told Autosport that the reason for his stepping back from the factory Yamaha MotoGP team is a growing dissatisfaction with the travelling involved in the World Championship, which this year features 21 races on its calendar.
Jarvis’ stepping down has not yet been officially communicated by Yamaha, and so neither has his replacement. Autosport reports that Paolo Pavessio, who currently heads up the company’s marketing division, is favoured by Yamaha’s executive committee to replace Jarvis.
The 66-year-old was pivotal for Yamaha’s return to competitiveness in the middle of the 2000s, after Honda dominated the end of the 500cc era and beginning of the 990cc era of MotoGP that began in 2002.
A large part of that return to the front for the Iwata marque was its signing of Valentino Rossi for the 2004 season. It was a move that Jarvis, along with Italian Davide Brivio (who is now Team Manager at the Trackhouse Racing Aprilia team), played a large part in bringing to fruition. Rossi would famously win on his Yamaha debut at the 2004 South African Grand Prix, after the marque had gone winless in 2003, and then go on to capture the first riders’ title for a Yamaha pilot since Wayne Rainey’s final 500cc triumph in 1992.
Yamaha and Rossi would go on to win the 2005, 2008, and 2009 MotoGP titles, and the success of the Italian allowed Yamaha to bring in a star from the 250cc World Championship: Jorge Lorenzo, who would win three titles with Yamaha (2010, 2012, 2015).
More recently, Jarvis has been a part of securing Yamaha’s future with its most recent championship winner: Fabio Quartararo, who recently re-signed with the brand until the end of the 2026 season.
The news of Jarvis' impending departure from Yamaha was broken during practice at this weekend's Grand Prix of the Americas.
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