The 2024 MotoGP season will be the last season for one of the oldest managers on the current MotoGP grid – Lin Jarvis. Jarvis is now 66 years old and has led the Yamaha racing division for 26 years as Yamaha team boss. This man from England played a very important role in the company’s revival in the mid-2000s where together with Davide Brivio, he was able to convince Valentino Rossi to join the project in 2004 and wanted to leave Honda at that time.
With Rossi, Yamaha won the title in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2009, before entering the era of Jorge Lorenzo who was crowned champion in 2010, 2012 and 2015. After a period of dominance by Marc Marquez and Honda – six of a possible seven titles between 2013 and 2019 – Fabio Quartararo regains the title for Yamaha in 2021.
Yamaha won a total of eight world championship titles under Managerial Jarvis. One of Lin Jarvis’ latest contributions was succeeding in getting Fabo Quartararo to sign a two-year contract extension with Yamaha Racing which was announced last week.
Of course there will still be other important work which will be Lin’s final task at Yamaha, namely delivering changes to Yamaha itself and of course reaching an agreement with one of the independent teams, to get back the satellite team structure for Yamaha which is believed to be able to accelerate the development of the motorbike package.
“This will be my last season on Yamaha, I will stop at the end of this year,” Jarvis told Motorsport.com “I will decide later what I will do, what I will dedicate my time to. I started joining the factory team in 1999. It was a very long period. I’m now 66 years old and I’m starting to get a little tired of traveling.
“I’ve been doing this for 26 years, and it’s amazing for the same person to lead a project, in a factory, for such a long period of time. The time has come to do something new. This is an ideal time to make this transition. We should be able to close my chapter and start a new one, in harmony. That’s the best solution for both parties.
“We have determined the candidate who will most likely be my replacement, although it is not official yet. But the one who will take over my position in January next year is someone from the Yamaha group.”
It is estimated that the replacement candidate that Lin Jarvis is referring to is Paolo Pavesio, who currently serves as director of Yamaha Europe’s marketing and racing department. The Italian racer is very close to the world of racing and is a regular in the Managerial WorldSBK and motocross teams for Yamaha.
