Motorsport history is full of iconic maneuvers that raised questions at the time but ultimately proved to be major coups for a brand. Michael Schumacher’s move to Ferrari in 1996, when the Italian marque’s Formula 1 title drought was 15 years, and Lewis Hamilton’s switch to an inconsistently competitive Mercedes in 2013 – a year before the hybrid switch that helped propel him to the Making an F1 legend is part of it, that comes to mind.
The motorcycle equivalent came in 2003 when Yamaha managed to convince Honda’s Valentino Rossi to join them for the 2004 MotoGP season. Over time, the story brilliantly reflects the partnership between Rossi and Yamaha – a 16-year collaboration that was split into two parts (2004 to 2010 and 2013 to 2021) and which has seen the Italian four world titles and 56 grand Prix victories brought all.
For Rossi, who was already a three-time world champion in the premier class, this was considered extremely risky at the time. He had won the last 500cc crown in 2001 and in the following two seasons on the all-conquering RC211V he clinched the first two titles of the new four-stroke MotoGP era.
In contrast, Yamaha had not won the MotoGP crown since Wayne Rainey won his third and final 500cc title in 1992. In the MotoGP era, Yamaha’s form seriously declined. While Rossi won 11 times in 2002 and never finished second, Yamaha team leader Max Biaggi only managed two race wins. He finished the campaign second, a whopping 140 points behind world champion Rossi.
In 2003, Yamaha didn’t win a single race. The only podium came courtesy of Alex Barros in the Tech3-powered M1, while the highest-placed Factory Team Yamaha rider in the championship was Carlos Checa in seventh place. He was a full 234 points behind Rossi, who won nine times en route to the number three title.
But Rossi and Honda were sobered as HRC was even more proud of the RC211V for the success Rossi was enjoying – while the Italian felt undervalued. This opened the door for Yamaha to try and woo MotoGP’s biggest star.
Rossi and Honda were a dominant combination in 2003 but Brivio convinced him his future lay with Yamaha
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The key figure for this was Davide Brivio, then team manager of the Yamaha factory team. Brivio was first associated with Yamaha when he started working in the Superbike World Championship in 1990 and joined the marque in MotoGP in 2001. Now, at the center of their biggest coup, Brivio has encountered a problem, as he revealed in a recent Spanish-language interview with Autosport sister site Motorsport.es.
“In the beginning, Yamaha didn’t want to sign Rossi,” explains Brivio, who now works in Alpine’s F1 team. “There was a trend that said if he won everyone would think he won, that it was his credit. And if he didn’t win, the focus would be on the bike.
“Who changed this thinking was Masao Furusawa, who in [June] In 2003 he became the head of the project. He was the one who convinced the Yamaha President that Valentino had to be signed. Together we convinced top management that you need a top driver to win. Honda won, yes, but they won with the best: [Mick] Dohan, Rossi.”
The turnaround in Yamaha’s senior Japanese management would prove crucial in ending the MotoGP dry spell for good. But the deal had yet to be made, and that fell to Brivio and Lin Jarvis.
“We opened the tent, went inside, sat around a table and started the meeting. Suddenly we heard a motorbike approaching and Lin and I hid under the table.” Davide Brivio
The MotoGP paddock is full of secret meetings for the media to spy on, but Yamaha’s courtship of Rossi has been remarkably covert. Brivio revealed negotiations with Rossi have been constant throughout Grand Prix weekends this year, but the efforts Yamaha management have had to make to keep their deals private have bordered on the extreme – a particular incident led to it that Brivio was hiding under a table…
“During the 2003 World Championship, we met with Vale almost every race weekend to talk about many things: the composition of the team, what mechanics he wanted to use, how to deal with testing and so on,” says Brivio. “The problem was where we met because in the paddock you are visible to everyone and in the hotels we are all mixed up.
“One of the strangest episodes was the one in the Clinica Mobile in Brno. We met there after ten o’clock in the morning when all the physiotherapists and doctors had already left. We opened the tent, went inside, sat around a table and started the meeting. Suddenly we heard a motorbike approaching and Lin and I hid under the table.”
Brivio, who later found success with Joan Mir and Suzuki in 2020, first had to convince the Yamaha hierarchy that they would get some of the credit for Rossi’s achievements
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Rossi’s manager at the time, Gibo Badioli, vehemently urged Yamaha to secure his husband’s signature – his financial terms “disproportionate at first,” according to Brivio. But an agreement was eventually reached and Rossi caused an uproar in the media with the news of his move to Yamaha for 2004. Although the big secret was out, that didn’t stop Yamaha from continuing its cloak-and-dagger operations with the Italian in 2003.
“After we shook hands, there was a moment when Vale wanted to see the bike,” Brivio recalls. “It was at the Donington Park circuit. We waited until the early hours because we wanted the paddock to be clear. And he came in disguised so that no one would recognize him.”
Honda didn’t make Rossi’s exit easy at the end of 2003, keeping him on his contract until the official expiry date and thus preventing him from testing the M1 until the new year. But with his famed crew chief Jeremy Burgess – who had also helped Doohan to his five consecutive 500cc titles with Honda from 1994 to 1998 – in tow, nothing could stop Yamaha’s long-awaited return to the top in 2004.
After a race-long battle with arch-rival Biaggi – now on a Honda – on the opening round in South Africa, Rossi started his life at Yamaha with a win. It was the first of nine wins that gave him his fourth premier class title. Another followed in 2005, the last two in 2008 and 2009.
After his disastrous two-year stint with Ducati ended in 2012, Rossi returned to Yamaha in 2013. During that time he won ten more races and finished second in the championship for three consecutive years between 2014 and 2016. His career in MotoGP as a Yamaha rider – albeit with Petronas SRT – ended in 2021.
Brivio continued to enjoy MotoGP success with Suzuki, who he joined in 2013 before returning to the premier class in 2015. In a reversal of tactics that put Yamaha back on the championship path, Brivio focused on young talent, taking out Maverick Vinales, Alex Rins and Joan Mir from Moto2. The latter ended Suzuki’s 20-year 2020 title drought.
While Rossi is the one hailed as a Yamaha legend, much of that success is thanks to Brivio and the often clandestine efforts he made in 2003 to get the number 46 on board in the first place.
Rossi takes the checkered flag in Sepang 2004 to applause from his team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images