Earlier this season, Valentino Rossi dropped the bombshell that he would be doing an about face and return to Yamaha Racing, after his failed experiment with Ducati Corse. Almost as soon as The Doctor was done making his announcement regarding his return, chatter started about whether Jeremy Burgess and his crew would join Rossi at Yamaha as well.
Confirming that news today, MCN‘s Matthew Birt talked to Yamaha’s Lin Jarvis, who confirmed that Yamaha wasn’t trying to maintain Ben Spies’ crew within the team, and that the venerable Burgess would join Rossi in the factory team’s garage.
Signing two-year deals with Yamaha at the Motegi round last weekend, Rossi’s Australian crew is perhaps not as critical of a component to his return to Yamaha, as it was thought imperative when the Italian went to race for Ducati, though the thought of Burgess et al not accompanying Rossi to Yamaha was an equally unthinkable prospect.
In total six crew members will follow Rossi from Ducati Corse to Yamaha Racing, where the nine-time World Champion will attempt to restart his career after a leg & shoulder injury and two years at Ducati removed him from the top of MotoGP time sheets.
Yamaha has confirmed that Jeremy Burgess, Alex Briggs, Bernie Ansiau, Gary Coleman, Brent Stephens, and Matteo Flamigni will begin work on the 2013 Yamaha YZR-M1 starting at the Valencia test in November, right after the 2012 Valencian GP.
Facing an even faster than before teammate in Jorge Lorenzo, as well as a rebooted Dani Pedrosa, not to mention the addition of Marc Marquez for 2013, Valentino Rossi has some stiff competition in front of him, as he finishes out the tail-end of his career.
Will we see Rossi on the podium? Will he win a race? Does he have a shot at the Championship? These are all questions that are on minds of MotoGP & VR46 fans, though the answers are not readily apparent. One thing is for certain though, Rossi will want not for any additional support, as his usual crew will be undertaking yet another adventure with him.
Source: MCN; Photo: © 2012 Scott Jones / Scott Jones Photography – All Rights Reserved
Read the last paragraph, if he doing so, I’m gonna say “WOW” and doing some somersault.
I stopped being a Rossi fan after his antics in the opening round of the ’05 season, but it would be great to see some fight in the “old dog”, and remind these kids why many call him the G.O.A.T. Hopefully the crew help him get him to that point.
The bike isn’t worse off than it was 2 years, it’s exactly the same. The other bikes have just gotten better, much better!
If your not moving foward, staying put is just like going backwards… Worse part is im not sure they’ll be any better starting next season… Maybe it’s time to get a new “Head Engineer!!”
It was a given, his team has been loyal for many, many years.
The M1 is not the same, nor has it gone backwards from 2 years ago. It is now a 1000 cc machine, two years ago it was an 800cc. Duh! The M1 is lapping faster times at some circuits, and has better top speed than two years ago, due to more power and better top speed.
Do you kids just make up your ‘facts’ when commenting ?
trus gua mesti koprol sambil bilang ‘Woooowwww’ gitu … ???!
@pooch
Agree!
The Ducati has gone nowhere, which is the same as backwards. Having spent 2 years trying to turn it into the bike they are going back to, which seems to have managed perfrectly well without them. Now a 1000, lapping faster and carrying Lorenzo closer to another title. You dont try to make a Ferrari into A Skyline. So why try to make the Ducati into an M1. Both of them have plummetted in my estimatyion and I doubt very much Rossi will win the title again. A shame.
Hopefully Audi will allow Ducati corse simply to build a bike that wins – a prototype instead of a bike that they can use bits of in the production bikes. Then they can get back into the game.
Well, at least they got some cool gear out of their stay at Ducati…
@ Pooch… are you talking about the Yamaha or the Ducati??? Im confused cause it’s pretty obvious that all the bikes are different cause of the 200cc increase but the overall direction and strategies remain the basically the same.. If your referring to the Ducati it’s the GP12 and not M1… Since Rossi and crew have been at Ducati they have made several drastic changes to the bike (aluminium frame, revised engine positioning and firing order) and even still Stoners lap times on the 800 are better than what they currently manage in the 1000… And no i don’t make up facts … Facts are Rossi and crew got paid tons of $$ to improve and race the GP12 and they simply have wastes alot of time, money and effort cause the bike is clearly lost with no direction in site..
the bike is the same ?…really will you please thing about that. it has a 1000 cc engine now..think that changes the chararistics a little ?..the setup a little ? the tires are different and will be even more so next year…besides if rossi can get the bike to speed I think he can surge to one more championship it will have to be in the next couple of years but its possable.
as the head of honda said,”rossi has always claimed the rider is more important than the bike, now is his time to prove it”. well, he failed. now he is going to slink back to yamaha where an ever faster lorenzo is going to hand him his ass(again).rossi was the greatest, but time waits for no man,he will have quite a mountain to climb.