Lin Jarvis, head of Yamaha’s MotoGP program for more than 25 years, will step down at the end of 2024 – Paolo Pavesio is top candidate to succeed him
The current 2024 MotoGP season will be Lin Jarvis’ last as Yamaha Race Director. The 66-year-old revealed this on the sidelines of the current race weekend at the Grand Prix of America in Austin in an interview for the Spanish-language edition of Motorsport.com,
“This will be my last season with Yamaha. I will leave at the end of the year,” said Jarvis in an exclusive interview on Thursday in the Yamaha tent at Circuit of The Americas. “What I will do in the future, how I will spend my time, I will decide later,” said the Briton.
“I founded the works team in 1999. It was an unusually long time. I’m 66 years old now and getting a bit tired of traveling,” explains Jarvis. “I’ve been doing this for 26 years now and it’s unusual for the same person to run a project in a factory for such a long time. It’s time to do something new.”
“It’s the ideal time for this transition,” Jarvis is convinced. He explains: “We need to be able to harmonize the end of my chapter and the beginning of the new one. This is the best solution for both sides.”
“We have already found a candidate who will most likely be my successor, even if it is not yet official. But it will be a man from the Yamaha Group who will take over my position in January of next year,” said Jarvis.
Although Jarvis refuses to reveal the name of his successor, according to information from Motorsport.com Spain, Paolo Pavesio is the ideal candidate in the eyes of the Yamaha board. Pavesio is currently Marketing and Racing Director for Yamaha Europe. The Italian has close connections in motorsport and is regularly on site at race weekends of the Superbike World Championship and the Motocross World Championship.
Lin Jarvis has been at the helm of Yamaha’s racing department for 26 years. In this position, he played an important role in the revival of the Japanese brand from the mid-2000s. Together with Davide Brivio, he managed to recruit Valentino Rossi for the project when the rider from Tavullia was the figurehead of the MotoGP scene and the flagship of Honda.
With Rossi as the driving force and under the direction of Jarvis, Yamaha won the MotoGP riders’ championship titles in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2009, immediately followed by the era of Jorge Lorenzo, who took the world title on Yamaha in 2010, 2012 and 2015.
After a period of dominance by Honda rider Marc Marquez, who won six out of seven possible world titles between 2013 and 2019, Fabio Quartararo took the crown back to Yamaha in the 2021 season. A total of eight world championship titles were won by Yamaha riders under Jarvis.
One of the final contributions of the soon-to-be former Yamaha race director was to seal the contract extension with Fabio Quartararo. The Frenchman’s new two-year contract until the end of 2026 was officially announced a few days ago.
Next on Jarvis’ agenda is to conclude a deal with one of the independent teams for the future. This would mean that Yamaha would have a satellite team in the MotoGP class for the first time since 2022 (then RNF).
