Fiat Yamaha unveils new livery in Malaysia

The Championship-winning Fiat Yamaha team will field the same line-up as last year with World Champion Valentino Rossi and runner-up Jorge Lorenzo once again spearheading its attack.

The two-day test for official MotoGP riders begins today, February 4, the first of three pre-season tests before the first race at Qatar on April 11. The Fiat Yamaha Team will hold a press conference at the Sepang International Circuit at 6.30pm local time. Lin Jarvis, Davide Brivio and Wilco Zeelenberg, Lorenzo’s new Team Manager, will be joined by Shigeto Kitagawa and Masahiko Nakajima at the press conference before the riders have their turn – Rossi and Lorenzo at 7pm and then Yamaha Tech 3 riders Colin Edwards and Ben Spies at 7.30pm.

Speaking about the forthcoming season Lin Jarvis, Managing Director of Yamaha Motor Racing, said “2009 was the most successful year for Yamaha’s racing activities for many years. It will be difficult to repeat such a performance but we are intending to try! We are fortunate to have the same fantastic rider line-up with Valentino and Jorge and we are looking forward to getting started with our work on track.”

He continued: “Of course, Yamaha has not been able to escape the difficulties caused by the global economic situation but MotoGP forms an important part of the company’s recovery plan. The MotoGP program is a very important brand image promotion activity and the racing requires us to demonstrate all of our company’s power in engineering, organisational and passion if we are to be successful at the top level.”

“We are extremely fortunate to have retained all of our existing loyal sponsors and even to have added a few more to the team. Our title sponsor Fiat is with us for a fourth year and Petronas, Packard Bell and Yamalube will continue as major sponsors of the team. We have two new sponsors in the form of Yamaha Indonesia, who join us with the aim of promoting their activities in Indonesia, the most important market for Yamaha at the moment, and Iveco. We have also retained all of our existing technical sponsors and suppliers.”

Jarvis concluded: “Last but not least I would like to say welcome back to all of our team staff and also to extend a warm welcome to our two new team members; Wilco Zeelenberg joins from the successful Yamaha Supersport team as Jorge’s new Team Manager and Davide Marelli comes in as his new data technician.”