How Rossi’s Petronas Yamaha deal is drawing closer

Since announcing his previous contract renewal with Yamaha a little more than two years ago, Valentino Rossi has been forced to sound like a broken record, repeating when asked that he would only continue his career beyond next December if he was still competitive.

A rider who stepped onto the podium twice in 2019 and finished seventh overall in the MotoGP world riders' championship could certainly be considered as such. However, if your view is that a legend of such status as nine-time world champion Rossi should only race if he has a chance of winning the title, then the picture starts to look very different.

Either way, the global paralysis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented Rossi from assessing his and Yamaha's current level of competitiveness before having to make a final decision, which led him to make his intentions public recently.

The Italian used Yamaha's official media streams to announce that he wanted to extend his career for another season, no doubt to make the message as institutional as possible and to gain maximum reach.

"I hope to continue in 2021," Rossi said. "It is not the best way to stop as the situation is maybe we don't race in 2020. It is fairer to make another championship and maybe stop at the end of the next [season]."

Lin Jarvis, Yamaha Motor Racing's Managing Director, added: "My wish is that he will continue because ending his career like this, with less races and without spectators, would not be fair for a champion like him."

However, since the factory team announced Fabio Quartararo would be stepping up from the satellite Petronas SRT team to replace Rossi in its line-up from 2021, it has been clear the famous number 46 will only be seen on a Yamaha again if it is on an SRT bike.

The new team smashed the status quo to pieces last season, with the sensational Quartararo finishing fifth in his rookie season and comfortably ahead of Rossi. As well as aiming for the best possible results, the purpose of the SRT squad is to bring through young riders and prepare them for the factory team.

To sign Rossi would require a complete betrayal of this philosophy, although it would clearly bring a whole host of other benefits.

Given the sequence of events in recent days, there is a feeling SRT has little room for manoeuvre in an operation involving the biggest name in MotoGP that ultimately benefits all parties.

The risk of letting Rossi go without lining up a faster rider to replace him is one thing; the risk of letting Rossi go and losing him as a brand ambassador would be even more costly

Rossi's role in the championship is unique. The fact that his last title came back in 2009 seems irrelevant, given that his famous yellow colours still dominate the grandstands all over the world. No rider has to fight his way through a bigger crowd of fans as they leave the garage, and no press officer is busier sorting through interview and sponsor requests than his.

More than a decade since his last world title triumph, Rossi still remains the biggest pull and the name to guarantee a healthy stream of fans coming to races all over the world.

The question about what effect his retirement might have on a product that still uses him as its main attraction has been asked many times before. Many believe the spectacle on track is good enough to keep the fans coming back without him and throw their allegiances behind either Rossi's VR46 Racing teams in Moto2 and Moto3 or his academy graduates, but others believe the Rossistas will switch off.

Whether they face up to that situation now or in the future, the stance of series promoter Dorna Sports remains clear as it backs his move to Petronas.

Then there is Yamaha. Ever since he returned to the Japanese factory in 2013 following an ill-fated two-year fling with Ducati, Rossi has gradually pieced together his status within the factory's MotoGP division.

In the explosive end to 2015, when the team bosses lined up alongside him over his team-mate and eventual world champion Jorge Lorenzo, it was clear that he was their darling again.

The Spanish rider's departure, combined with a lack of domineering pressure from his replacement Maverick Vinales to become the team leader, strengthened Rossi's position further until the senior management figures at Yamaha in Japan decided to leave him out of their factory team plans from 2021.

"The risk of losing Quartararo was too big, so on this occasion the factors were in place to let Valentino go," a source, who prefers to remain anonymous from Yamaha, told Autosport. "Up to now there was no point in letting him go because there wasn't an obvious replacement available.

"It would have been stupid to do it before now, but if Fabio would have left and done a good job for another factory, heads would have rolled at Yamaha."

The risk of letting Rossi go without lining up a faster rider to replace him is one thing; the risk of letting Rossi go and losing him as a brand ambassador would be even more costly. It's the reason why the Iwata factory had been instantly open to offering him a deal that continues to keep him tied to the brand long after he has hung up his leathers.

Neither of the Petronas Yamaha M1 machines have been allocated to a rider for 2021 yet. Renewing with Quartararo's current team-mate Franco Morbidelli is "the safest option," according to the team director Johan Stigefelt.

However, Rossi's recent comments have put pressure on those making the decisions, starting with team principal Razlan Razali, followed by Stigefelt and Wilco Zeelenberg, the team manager.

There is a feeling SRT has little room to manoeuvre in an operation involving the biggest name in MotoGP that ultimately benefits all parties

"We have not yet spoken with Vale or his agent," Stigefelt told Autosport. "It has simply been a discussion with Yamaha and we have opened the door to the possibility of him racing with us, even though that is a different option to our initial idea. It is a move that involves a lot of people."

What we do know is that if the man from Tavullia says yes, Yamaha is backing it and Dorna can't get enough of the idea to keep the star attraction on the 2021 grid. Now we just need to know who is going to pay for it.

"That is down to the team, it is their money," Jarvis let slip.

With Quartararo and Morbidelli currently costing around a million Euros a year, the budget will have to be significantly stretched if Petronas wants to call in The Doctor.