The charismatic turquoise Yamaha of the Petronas team competed for three years in MotoGP. They achieved six wins in 2020 with Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli triumphing on three occasions respectively. However, the Petronas team jumped ship from the premier class and WithU Yamaha RNF Team will be the name that takes its place in 2022.
The newcomer Yamaha satellite team, backed by the factory and with Razlan Razali as the top representative, has only received a one-year contract. This means that the RNF box does not yet know which manufacturer it will work with in 2023.
On the sidelines of the team’s presentation in Verona, the owner of the WithU Yamaha RNF Team went into more detail on the subject of the contract with Yamaha . “Since we are a new company and we cannot show results, their rules only allowed them to give us a one-year contract with the option to be renewed,” Razali explained.
“We are a new team, we only have four months. We have to show results and some stability in all areas,” he added. “The goal is to improve our performance in June and then talk to Yamaha about extending the contract.”
“We look like the underdogs, but we like that because it allows us to surprise people,” explains Razali, hoping for similar good results to Fabio Quartararo in his rookie season.
In 2022, Razali has another debutant, Darryn Binder. Although great hopes are pinned on Andrea Dovizioso, who returns to the premier class after a break of (almost) a year, the South African driver promises great moments on the track.
And it is that, for Yamaha in particular, the pure results on the asphalt are not all that counts at the end of the season. Less than two months before the start of the season, Razali explains the method to win over the official team.
“For Yamaha it is more important how we manage the team. We have the necessary experience. Yamaha knows us. It is the same group of people. But we still have to show how well we can manage the team,” he concluded.