KTM can just put him on the Tech3 bike with Gardner. They don't have any reason to keep Lecuona or Petrucci. Yamaha would be stupid not to move Morbidelli up and put 2 new riders with Petronas, like Gerloff and Beaubier.
SRT said that they would be refocusing on their mission to bring up young racers after they are free of Rossi. I doubt they're going to have two guys on the team who are both over 25.
Why though? It has to be obvious to Jarvis that divorce is the best option. Neither of them are bad people, it just didn’t work out. Now Mav can be free to get on a bike that doesn’t give him mental fits, and Yamaha can bring in a consistent rider who isn’t emotionally done with the whole thing. I was kinda surprised Mav reupped with them last time, I thought he would jump ship. Why not though? If Maverick has saved his money and has enough to be comfortable, why wouldn’t he say fuck this and walk away? He only gets one career and one life, and he’s not going to do shit at Yamaha no matter how many seasons he spends there. There won’t be a contract renewal with Yamaha after this one, if he has an opportunity to jump on a good bike and start over he has to take it, he might never have another shot. The Aprilia looks pretty hot now, I think Mav could be reinvigorated by the move. It’d be nice to see him performing the way we all know he’s capable of.
Gerloff and Beaubier are both children, compared to Rossi. They each have more than a few good years left to them and they would both represent the USA well in MotoGP. I don't know if any team would willingly put 2 Americans on the same team, but they are willing to put 2 Spaniards or Italians on the same team. How much input does Yamaha have on the Petronas riders?
I don't think the original mission was bringing up riders younger than Rossi. Might as well have no mission statement at all. I know there is cooperation with Yamaha on rider choices. How much freedom there is, I don't know. I suppose that depends on who is paying said rider.
I forgot that Vinales had quit a team before while making similar statements as he has in the past week... https://motomatters.com/news/2012/10/19/maverick_vinales_in_shock_decision_to_le.html
https://www.crash.net/motogp/news/982240/1/official-maverick-vinales-leave-yamaha-end-2021 ~sent from mobile
In all fairness though... MV did win the Moto3 Championship that very next year. I'm a big MV fan, and I get a lot of shit for it. LOL it's stressful rooting for the kid sometimes, but I think he has so much talent. I think he's championship material but I don't think he can win it at the GP level in any way that would be less than dominant. I don't see him piecing together a Mir/Hayden style championship where he just gets tons of top 5's and a few wins. I think he'd have to do it Marquez/Lorenzo/Stoner style. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening on the Aprilia. Although I'd love to be proven wrong. I was hoping he'd leave Yamaha at the end of 2018, but for some reason he signed super early and retained his seat. I then hoped he'd leave in 2020, but again they signed him for 2 more before the season actually got started (COVID delay) I know Ducati had been talking to him, and I think he should have tried that.. If lack of rear grip and power have been his biggest complaints, switching to Ducati should have been the move.. Honestly, I'm glad he's finally leaving. I hope he does well at Aprilia, and it lights a bit of fire under their ass to further develop the bike. Now they have arguably the "fastest" guy in the paddock at the controls of one of their bikes. He's also best friends with Aleix if I recall. So, I can see Aleix maybe being in his ear a bit lately about coming to Aprilia. Overall, I think its a good move for MV, a good move for Yamaha, and a great move for Aprilia.
Maverick doesn't have the mental fortitude to succeed on the Aprilia. I used to like him even through his ups and downs, but yesterday he acted like a bigger bitch than JL.
Are there real rumors or is this just what you are predicting. I’m asking cause I don’t wanna get too excited.
I don’t think the Aprilia is as good as everyone wants it to be. Espargaró gets 110% out of that bike. No one else has been able to ride it well and Vinales will have as many difficult days on that, if not more, than he had on the Yamaha. “Although the Italian factory's RS-GP is a much-improved package this year, it remains the least successful bike on the grid with a best result of sixth place while the other five manufacturers have all won races in the past year.” -quote from that article
I haven’t seen any serious rumors about Gerloff or Beaubier bumping up to MotoGP. Gerloff is probably the most likely, but it would depend what his data showed this past weekend.