A multi-year deal has been signed between Yamaha and Pramac Racing to make the latter the official satellite MotoGP team of the Iwata manufacturer from 2025.
The agreement was announced after the conclusion of Friday’s MotoGP running at the Dutch TT, and means the reigning MotoGP Teams’ Champion will take the third and fourth Yamaha YZR-M1 bikes from next year.
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Yamaha is referring to the Pramac team as the “second Factory Team”, and confirms it will run 2025-spec M1s.
Yamaha Racing Managing Director Lin Jarvis no doubt had a significant role in making this agreement, which will see Yamaha end its run of two years without a satellite MotoGP team since the RNF team (now Trackhouse Racing) left for Aprilia at the end of 2022. After confirming the retention of 2021 MotoGP World Champion Fabio Quartararo until the end of 2026, the new agreement with Pramac is the second key partnership Jarvis has helped to bring to Yamaha in what is his final year in the Managing Director role he has held for over 25 years.
“These are busy times for Yamaha, both on track and behind the scenes,” Jarvis said on the agreement between Yamaha and Pramac. “Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (YMC) and Yamaha Motor Racing (YMR) have made it no secret that they are putting all their effort into bike development.
“We now enter the next phase – one that we have been looking forward to for a long time: the arrival of a second Yamaha team.
“The new partnership with Prima Pramac Racing will take a different form than we have used in the past.
“Rather than a satellite team, with this new agreement Yamaha have put their trust in Pramac Racing, and we will be providing them with Factory bikes of the same specification used by the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Team.
“The targets are to accelerate bike development, which remains YMC and YMR's key priority in our quest to return to winning ways, as well as having four competitive riders in the MotoGP championship in two top-class teams.
“In addition to the MotoGP programme, our collaboration includes a future Moto2 project to provide a platform to groom future MotoGP riders. It is too early to give details about this programme right now as this will be developed in the months ahead.
“I would like to extend my personal appreciation and thanks to Paolo Campinoti, CEO of Pramac, and Gino Borsoi, Team Manager of Prima Pramac Racing, for their faith and trust in Yamaha. We have the greatest respect for their team, and we assure them of our full commitment to make this new partnership highly successful for many years to come.”
The deal means that Pramac will end a two-decade relationship with Ducati. The team won the MotoGP teams’ title last year, becoming the first independent outfit to do so, and finished second in the riders’ standings with Jorge Martin, with whom Pramac now leads the 2024 Riders’ Championship.
The riders for the Pramac Yamaha team remain unconfirmed, with the aforementioned Martin already signed to Aprilia from next year, and Franco Morbidelli having joined Pramac from Yamaha after a tough two-and-a-half seasons with the factory team until the end of 2023.
