According to several sources, the Petronas SRT and Yamaha teams have already contacted candidates to replace Valentino Rossi in the 2022 season.
The SRT team is expected to extend cooperation with the main sponsor Petronas, and the team is also expected to continue working with Yamaha, and Franco Morbidelli, who has a contract with the Petronas SRT team until the end of 2022, will get a Yamaha factory motorcycle. belongs to Rossi, provided, of course, that he decides to remain on the team, as a clause in the contract allows him to terminate it if he receives an offer from one of the factory teams.
Rossi, on the other side of the garage, has to meet certain benchmarks in terms of results by the middle of the season if he wants to start negotiations to extend his contract to next season. But the nine-time world champion has amassed just 15 points in this year’s six races and ranks 19th in the standings, so there’s a good chance the legendary racer’s career will end this year anyway.
Raul Fernandez is said to stand out among the candidates for replacement, but he is closely connected with KTM, with which he also races in the Moto2 class. SRT team boss Razlan Razali and Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis met with Fernandez's manager this weekend to discuss the possibility of a young racer transferring who would have to pay KTM some compensation.
Even if Fernandez does not sign a contract with Yamaha or the SRT team, he could be seen in the MotoGP championship next season, as KTM is expected to plan his promotion to the Tech3 team, where he would become a teammate of Remy Gardner.
Among the candidates for Rossi's replacement are Joe Roberts, Xavi Vierge and Jake Dixon.
If you wish, you can donate to us quickly and securely via PayPal. Every contribution helps us, your team World of Speed!
You can donate at this link ->Donate