Petronas SRT Yamaha to morph into new team for 2022 MotoGP season

Petronas SRT Yamaha has announced it will fold in its current guise at the end of the 2021 MotoGP season before relaunching as an entirely new entity from next year.

The outfit has competed in its current form since 2019 but after just three seasons will shift towards a new Yamaha satellite set-up.

The decision was made after Petronas announced it would be pulling its title backing, leading to a split with the Sepang circuit (Sepang Racing Team).

Despite this team owner and boss Razlan Razali and Johan Stigefelt will remain on board for fresh set-up, which is rumoured to be known as WithU Yamaha as part of a deal with an Italian fitness company.

However, there was no mention of Wilco Zeelenberg, who rumoured to be a prime candidate to take up the vacant managerial spot vacated by Davide Brivio at Suzuki. 

"We have experienced a remarkable voyage over the past years. From a small start in 2015 there was a great step for us in 2018 when we secured an entry to the premier class of MotoGP and built a MotoGP squad from scratch," Razali said.

"In 2019 we were on the grid and just four races into our rookie season we were on the front row. By the seventh race we were on the podium. In 2020 we secured the first race win for a satellite Yamaha MotoGP team in over 20 years and finished second in the overall team and rider championships. In 2021 we raced with the Greatest Of All Time rider, Valentino Rossi. This is an incredible story.

"The team will race its final race in Valencia and we thank all our crew, riders, fans and partners for their support. In particular, we thank Petronas, with whom none of this would have been possible…

"We also thank Sepang International Circuit for their vision and support of upcoming Malaysian talent over a long period.

"Our collective dream was to have a Malaysian rider competing for podiums in the MotoGP World Championship. Sadly, we were not able to achieve this in the short life of our squad, but we can reflect upon tremendous success by every other measure.

"Our final season has not reached its conclusion yet and we continue to strive for the very best results possible across all three classes. Thank you all."

Taking the place of Tech 3 Racing, which defected to KTM at the end of the 2018 season, the Malaysian-flagged Petronas SRT Yamaha made a spectacular debut in 2019 with rookie Fabio Quartararo picking up five pole positions and seven podiums.

In 2020 it mounted a title challenge with both the Frenchman and team-mate Franco Morbidelli, culminating in the pair winning six of the 14 races, with the latter Italian ending the year runner-up.

Latest rumours suggest Andrea Dovizioso and Darryn Binder will comprise the team's 2022 MotoGP rider line-up