MotoGP, Meregalli: "Yamaha wants a satellite team, VR46 is the first choice"

“It was an unforgettable season”: Massimo 'Maio' Meregalli, Yamaha team manager, uses irony to describe 2023. For the Japanese manufacturer it was a year of many pains and few joys, but also the moment in which it realized it had to change. With this new perspective (and the new concessions), 2024 will get underway, a season which is important in many respects. Yamaha will have to try to keep Quartararo with it, to find a satellite team, to become competitive again. Many goals and little time to achieve them.

Maio, let's start by closing this year: how was it?

“Without a shadow of a doubt it was the worst season since I've been in MotoGP, it was also a long one with sprint races and poor results. Unfortunately we realized from the beginning that the situation would be difficult and, at a certain point, the only thing we tried to do within the team was not to complain, but to try to optimize what we had as much as possible, even if… it had already been optimized the previous year”.

It seems incredible that you went from winning the title in 2021 to not winning a single race this year.

“We suddenly found ourselves in this situation, but we had already been improving little for 2 or 3 years, if not 4, the problems were always the same. We had won in 2021 because we had started strong, while our opponents had new bikes to sort out, but we suffered in the second part of the championship. The same thing happened last year, we took advantage of the fact that we knew our bike very well, but when our rivals found a base, we no longer had anything else. We were able to hide our limits in the last two years because the others had problems at the beginning, but this season, they all started strong, with competitive bikes, and we found ourselves faced with reality."

How difficult is it to manage a season like this?

“We were good at approaching each GP as a new race, fortunately some podiums arrived and brought enthusiasm. On a personal level, it weighed heavily on me to leave home thinking that, unless something special happened, it would be another difficult weekend. At the end of this season, however, we started to try something new for the next one, we also took some risks because Yamaha was not used to giving the riders something new that had not yet been tested by the test riders. We had nothing to lose and we tried to anticipate something and, in the end, there was some improvement in the last few races. Now I hope to start from Sepang a little further forward than we finished in Valencia."

"Quartararo never lost his spirit in amongst all the difficulties, I can't say anything about him"

A true champion shows himself in the difficult moments, how did Quartararo react to this complicated situation?

“Fabio was always on point. Sometimes he wasn't very good at managing his emotions, but one of his qualities is that, after an outburst, he starts again like always, he's always positive, he thinks about what he can do to improve in the next race. When, as happens to everyone, he lost a little spirit, he recovered it immediately in the next race. I can't say anything about how hard he pushed and how he managed his season, it was also difficult for him to digest the fact that he couldn’t start the race to win, but in the end he realized that we had to take advantage of the opportunities and continue working. Hats off to Fabio because he never backed down despite a package that didn't allow him to give what he would have wanted."

After the tests at Valencia, Quartararo was not too enthusiastic about the new bike, but happy with the internal changes at Yamaha.

“That change in mentality was also demonstrated by the fact that he was trying new material before the testers. Fabio was very happy with the new aerodynamic package, it was the main test at Valencia. At the beginning of the season, at Sepang, we brought a lot of material but, while we obtained more downforce, the bike did not corner; however with this new package, developed in Italy, the M1 was more balanced and had less tendency to wheelie. We managed to take the first step forward in the right direction with the aerodynamics."

Will we see that 'made in Marmorini' engine at Sepang?

“The collaboration does not mean that Luca is making a new engine, but there is a continuous exchange of ideas, information and solutions between his work group and Yamaha. The positive thing is that the concessions - which in terms of personal pride I would have preferred not to have - will allow us to be able to develop the engine over the course of the season. The Japanese are always a bit conservative, we have not yet managed to completely distort them (laughs), but it is significant that there is this type of collaboration, like the fact of having developed the aerodynamics in Italy: they are the fruits of that change of mentality that Fabio was asking for".

"Without a satellite team, it will help us to test with the official riders. Wild cards? For the moment we have 3 planned"

How much will concessions speed up the process of getting back to the top?

“It will certainly be important to be able to have tests with the official riders: we will do the shakedown in Sepang with Fabio and Alex, then we will probably test on the Monday after the Portimao and Le Mans GPs. The limit is the quantity of tyres available, but for us it is very useful to be able to do this because not having a satellite team is a disadvantage. Doing private tests will help us, even if it's not easy to fit them into such a full calendar."

Will the 6 wild cards be useful?

“Right now we plan to start doing 3. They are useful because Crutchlow will be able to carry on other work, as happened in Motegi. We can split the commitments, which we weren't able to do this year."

How important will 2024 be for Yamaha not only to regain competitiveness, but also to be able to find a satellite team? Uccio told us that he is talking to you.

“We have to be objective, in the situation we find ourselves in we cannot think that halfway through the championship we will be able to win races. I expect an improvement, I would be satisfied with always being close to the top 5. This year too Fabio has always been competitive in terms of pace, our problem - for a reason that we still have to understand - is that in qualifying we were not able to improve as much as our opponents. When he started on the second or third row, he either got on the podium or came close."

"Satellite team and renewal with Quartararo are the objectives for the future"

Speaking of satellite teams, Pramac, VR46 and LCR are the teams whose contracts are expiring. How confident are you that you can snatch one away from the competition?

“It is one of our objectives and its management will be different than what we had in the past, when we simply supplied the bikes. The idea we have now is to have a direct synergy with the satellite team to work together. Certainly the first team for us to choose would be Valentino's, he is a Yamaha ambassador and our rapport is well known."

Are you afraid of losing Quartararo at the end of the year?

“As with the satellite team, keeping him is another objective of ours. We know there is this risk, but we will do everything to convince him to stay."

What was the first impression that Rins gave you in the Valencia tests?

“We only asked him to lap, in the first part of the test he didn't touch the bike and we absolutely didn't tell him to do a time attack. We only made him do kilometres because we wanted to know his impressions, also to have a direct comparison with Honda. Riders get used to a new bike too quickly (laughs), so the comments after the first two rides are the most truthful."

What did he tell you?

“That our bike is less physical to ride. His approach was good, even though we are talking about just one day and his condition was not perfect."

"Horsepower isn't the only problem, the M1 needed to be updated"

What should we expect from Yamaha at Sepang?

“For sure, as we usually do, there won't be an upheaval. I already know that we won't see the definitive M1 there, but I expect it to be more competitive. The concessions will allow us to work during the year in all aspects. We will certainly have an evolution for the aerodynamics and I expect the same for the engine. There will also be something new for the chassis."

What would you like to find under the Christmas tree, horsepower as Quartararo always says?

“I have always been convinced that it wasn't just a question of power, it was the whole package that needed to be updated. Making up half a second with the engine is impossible, that wasn't the only limit."