On one side, the proven competitiveness and a long-term partnership with Ducati. On the other, there’s uncertainty with Yamaha, but with a potential reduction in costs. Prima Pramac Racing has a decision to make about its future constructor partner in MotoGP from 2025, and time is running out.
There are rumors that Ducati has set June 2 as the deadline for a decision on activating the team’s option to renew. And on Yamaha’s side, the deadline is identical. The Iwata manufacturer wants to have a satellite team again next year, but naturally expanding the number of bikes on the grid requires preparation time.
Lin Jarvis, managing director of Yamaha, was quoted by Crash.net saying: ‘There’s not a hard deadline, as such. No rule, nothing defined. But I think the latest will be by Mugello [May 31-June 2]. Prior to Mugello, everything should be sorted. The only hard deadline you have is for your future planning, when you make investments. When you talk about budgets, talk about making extra materials or not, you need to know by June. So that is, more or less, the time’.
Currently, Yamaha is the only manufacturer without a satellite team, while Ducati has three. One of them is VR46, which according to Sky Italia, has reportedly rejected moving to Yamaha. Nevertheless, despite the YZR-M1 being one of the least competitive bikes currently, Jarvis believes they will secure a satellite team in 2025:
– We have stated before, it is clearly our intention to have four bikes on the grid again in the soonest possible time-frame. Not only to be competitive in each individual race weekend by having more bikes on the grid and more data, but also having the same data to help develop the bike. […]. There are lots of discussions going on. They are confidential. […]. The only thing I can say is: our plans remain the same. We are optimistic that we may be successful in getting a satellite team, a second team, an independent team on the grid as soon as possible.