Fiat leaves Yamaha

"The team will change title sponsor and therefore it won't be "Fiat Yamaha Team" anymore."
Rossi, Czech MotoGP 2010
Rossi, Czech MotoGP 2010
© Gold and Goose

The four-year Fiat-Yamaha MotoGP partners🦩hip has come to an end.

A message on the🌺 team's official Twitter page @fiatyamahateam states that it won't be updated and confirms "The team will c🎐hange title sponsor and therefore it won't be "Fiat Yamaha Team" anymore."

The team's official website also confirms the agreement isꦕ over.

Despite winning all three MotoGP titles in 2010, and retaining new world champion Jorge Lorenzo for n🃏ext season, Fiat's departure had been expected due to Italian superstar Valentino Rossi's switch𒆙 from Yamaha to Ducati.

Fiat was Yamaha's first non-tobacco title sponsor of the 💟four-stroke MotoGP era and, while its debut 2007 season brඣought little success, Fiat-liveried YZR-M1s have won the Riders' and Teams' World Championship every year since 2008.

Although an Italian car manufacturer spons🍸oring a Japanese motorcycle team seemed a strange mix, Fiat explained Mo🐓toGP allowed it to access a younger car-buying audience than F1.

Brands such as Air Asia and Telefonica have been linked to the sponsorship position vacated by Fiat, but it seems no deal has been concluded and it remains possibl🎶e that a corporate Yamaha livery could be used by Lorenzo and new team-mate Ben Spies in 2011.

Should the most successful manufacturer of recent seasons - Yamaha ha🌌s won the triple crown of Riders', Teams' and Manufacturers' titles for the past three years running - be unable to secure a title sponsor of value, it will be a further worrying sign for MotoGP economics.

Read More