Lin Jarvis: Yamaha MotoGP team boss to step down at end of season - 'Ideal time to make this transition'

Lin Jarvis has announced he will step down as Yamaha MotoGP team boss at the end of the season.

The 66-year-old has been in charge of Yamaha’s racing division for 26 years, resurrecting the team in the mid-2000s by convincing Valentino Rossi to join.

Rossi’s MotoGP World Championship titles in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2009 were the first four of eight won by Yamaha under Jarvis – Jorge Lorenzo regained the crown in 2010, 2012 and 2015, and Fabio Quartararo triumphed in 2021.

"This will be my last season at Yamaha, I will quit at the end of the year," Jarvis told Autosport ahead of this weekend’s MotoGP Americas Grand Prix, live on TNT Sports and discovery+. "I will decide later what I'm going to do, what I will dedicate my time to.

"I started the factory team in 1999. It has been an unusually long period. I'm 66 years old now and I'm starting to get a little tired of travelling.

"I've been doing this for 26 years, and it's quite extraordinary for the same person to lead a project, in a factory, for such a long period.The time has come to do something new.

"It's the ideal time to make this transition. We have to be able to close my chapter and start the new one, in harmony. That is the best solution for both parties.”

Jarvis also shared that Yamaha had already identified his replacement, who will take over in January. However, he declined to share any more details about the new team boss.

Yamaha suffered a decline in form last season, going without a win for the first time in two decades as Quartararo recorded just three podium finishes.

Despite this, the French rider signed a two-year contract extension with Yamaha earlier this month.

Jarvis pledged to ensure he would restore Yamaha to former glories before his departure, branding Quartararo’s decision to stay as a “sign of confidence”.

“We have plans to return to our former winning ways,” he said. “We are fully aware of the gap to various competitors. We know that we must change the approach a lot. To change the approach, it’s people more than anything.

“The skill, the people, the systems, the way you work, coupled with investment. We have explained to him what our plans are. He has witnessed several of those plans here. We brought in new European resources to join our Japanese team.

“His decision to stay with us is a sign of confidence that he has to become a winning rider again, in blue.”

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