Opinion: Would Petronas Yamaha be a good move for Valentino Rossi in 2021?

The 2020 MotoGP teams haven’t yet turned a wheel this side of the new year and silly season for 2021 has already started. Earlier in the week, Valentino Rossi said he would consider switching with Fabio Quartararo if he was asked to by Yamaha. So Ryan Lilly, Alex Whitworth, and Nat Jarvis started a debate as to what would the wised choice be for The Doctor?

Alex Whitworth

My feeling is that if Rossi went to Petronas he’d demand full factory support, or it would be claused in his contract that certain performance will give him certain things from Yamaha, so that if he’s fighting for the top positions every week then he will receive full factory support. Considering that, I think it would make more sense for Rossi, Yamaha, Petronas and Quartararo to leave Rossi in Monster & Quartararo in Petronas, promising Quartararo the same things as they would promise Rossi but without all the disruption.

Also, for SRT the move wouldn’t make sense unless they dropped Morbidelli because they would be set up as a VR46 team, which they said, when contemplating Baldassarri for 2019, they don’t want to be. That said, the performance difference between the factory team and the Sepang team is, as Rossi said in the original interview on Cycle World, maybe not so big. He could still do a good job there.

Then you have to ask questions about his crew/personnel, would they go with him? Probably yes, but maybe some complications will still occur. My personal opinion is that it would make more sense to just leave things as they are, assuming neither Viñales nor Quartararo move to Ducati, but just give everything the factory riders have with respect to personnel, engineers, upgrade punctuality- even paint the Petronas bike factory Yamaha blue. But, If it did happen I don’t think you’d see a big change in Rossi’s level or result.

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Nat Jarvis

There has always been something special about seeing the fluorescent yellow number 46 on a Factory MotoGP Yamaha. For me, if Valentino Rossi is even contemplating moving from a full factory outfit to a satellite outfit why not just retire?

Is Valentino Rossi still capable of winning races? Yes. Is he capable of beating all the other Yamaha riders regularly? Yes. So why consider stepping aside? The only thing I can think of is maybe Rossi wants a new challenge. It feels like it’s only recently he came back to the Factory Yamaha Team, but it was 7 years ago now, and Rossi will soon be 41 years old.

I feel a certain sadness when you think of the great Valentino Rossi on anything other than a factory bike. I truly believe if Yamaha can provide Valentino Rossi with the right tool, then Rossi can win races. Can he win another title? If I’m honest with myself I would have to say Marc Marquez will get to his tenth title before Rossi would. As James Toseland said in 2018 on BT Sport

“This is the Marc Marquez’s era we are in.”

Either way, I would still be happy to see Rossi in MotoGP. As a fan, there is this certain excitement when you see Valentino Rossi on a grand prix bike for the first time from trackside, and the scenes in Italy would remain spectacular for another couple of years. A part of me is convinced that Rossi will not retire until he’s 46, it just seems fitting.”

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Ryan Lilly

Valentino Rossi is arguably the greatest rider in the modern MotoGP era. The Italian is the heart and soul of MotoGP, bringing in hundreds of thousands of fans through the gates at each and every race circuit around the world.

It’s no lie that since the accident ahead of his home Grand Prix in Misano back in 2017 that the nine-time World Champion’s results have started to drop. But you can’t forget that since returning to Yamaha he’s finished inside the top three in the overall standings in four out of the seven races and nearly clinched his tenth World Championship in 2015.

The latest season showed a seriously rocky patch for The Doctor, however, the soon-to-be 41-year-old showed promise in the Valencia and Jerez tests and is happy with the work Yamaha has done. In my honest opinion, I think the problem lies with Yamaha more than Valentino Rossi.

Since Lorenzo left the team at the end of 2016 and Maverick Vinales’ triple victory during the first five rounds of 2017, the Iwata manufacturer has picked up one single win with Rossi (Assen 2017) and three wins with Vinales (Australia 2018, Assen + Malaysia 2019).

It’s clear to see that the 2019 season was Valentino Rossi’s worse for Yamaha, but if Rossi and Yamaha can get back on track then I don’t see why he should retire just yet. Rossi will be happy if he’s inside the top five, fighting for podiums or even race wins.

Personally, 2015 was Rossi’s last chance of getting his elusive tenth title, but I think there’s still a few more race victories left in the Italian. On the flip side, you look at the likes of Fabio Quartararo and Joan Mir, two young riders who have come up through the ranks and have seriously impressed in their rookie seasons.

Quartararo, who as we know will be running the 2020 spec Yamaha M1 along with teammate Franco Morbidelli, was Marquez’s nearest challenger for race wins in the second half of the season. Taking the fight down to the wire in both Misano, Thailand, Japan, and Valencia.

But as we saw in Malaysia, a weekend where Fabio Quartararo wiped the floor with the opposition by breaking lap records nearly every time he went out, but when it counted on Sunday, Quartararo experienced a similar lack of rear grip experience to what the Factory Yamaha riders have experienced.

But with Malaysia aside, is there any point of Yamaha to risk losing Fabio Quartararo at such an early stage of his career? Not really. With Rossi’s 2019 form it would make sense for the Italian to potentially complete the seat-swap that the Italian spoke about over the Christmas period. This will mean Fabio gets Factory support and Rossi continues to ride the latest spec M1 Yamaha.

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