The upcoming season will be crucial for Yamaha’s progress in MotoGP. Under the new concessions system, they are in the tier that has access to more bike development benefits, including six wildcards.
However, for now, they only plan to utilize half of those available, as clarified by team’s managing director Massimo Meregalli to GPOne.com: ‘At the moment, we plan to use three. They are useful because [Cal] Crutchlow will be able to continue other work, as happened in Motegi. We can divide commitments, which we weren’t able to do this year’.
Primarily intended for test riders to test in a race context, wildcards are usually used on crucial tracks for bike development or at the constructors’ home rounds, as often seen with Ducati at the Italian GP. A wildcard, besides being a limited opportunity, also means extra expenses, so these benefits must be used cautiously and thoughtfully.