Yamaha working on Lorenzo-Spies line-up

Sunday’s official announcement of Valentino Rossi’s departure from Yamaha at the end of the season means the Japanese factory are now in the process of putting in place their rider line-up for the 2011 campaign.

Managing Director of Yamaha Motor Racing, Lin Jarvis, explained to motogp.com that negotiations are currently in progress to once again secure Jorge Lorenzo’s services and have Monster Yamaha Tech 3 rookie Ben Spies alongside the Spaniard in the factory team.

Jarvis, who stressed that neither deal had been formalised yet, explained: “Our plan is that we would obviously like to continue with Jorge who is having such a wonderful year at the moment. We are working closely with him and his management to try and close the deal. I’m optimistic that in the near future I hope we can achieve that.”

He continued: “Our plan is also to bring Ben Spies over from the Tech 3 team. Again that has not been concluded yet. As soon as all the contractual agreements are fixed then we will make our announcement. At this moment that’s the plan for the factory team.”

Speaking about the departure of Rossi who will join Ducati, Jarvis said: “It was a sad day (Sunday) because even though we have known about his decision for some weeks when you make the public announcement it becomes a fact.”

Jarvis was speaking at the official MotoGP test at Brno on Monday where Rossi tested a new Yamaha engine upgrade, and in a separate interview the Italian rider said he hoped to be able to ride the Ducati for the first time at the end-of-season Valencia test. Masao Furusawa, Executive Officer of Engineering Operations at Yamaha, indicated however that this was unlikely due to contractual agreements.