Yamaha to defend MotoGP crown with no sponsor

Yamaha will kick off the defence of its 2011 MotoGP crown without a title sponsor.
Yamaha has struggled to replace Italian car giant Fiat following the departure of Valentino Rossi to Ducati at the end of 2010.

Yamaha’s difficulty in attracting fresh investment was first reported by MCN in December, despite protracted talks with Petronas and AirAsia.

Lorenzo and Spies will officially unveil the 2011 factory YZR-M1 in Sepang on Monday ahead of a three-day test session at the Malaysian venue.

And MCN understands the 2011 livery is expected to look close to the paintscheme reigning world champion Lorenzo and 2009 World Superbike champion Spies used during the first Sepang test earlier this month.

Yamaha boss Masao Furusawa recently dropped a big hint to MCN that Lorenzo and Spies will contest the 2011 MotoGP world championship while running in the Japanese factory’s corporate blue livery.

This year is Yamaha’s 50th anniversary of Grand Prix racing and numerous events are scheduled to commemorate the landmark.

And senior boss Furusawa said he would not be overly concerned by Yamaha’s failure to find a new sponsor, even though the Japanese factory has dominated in MotoGP since 2008.

Furusawa believes the opportunity to run in corporate colours will be benefit the 50th anniversary celebrations.

He told MCN: “This is a memorable year for Yamaha with the 50th anniversary of Grand Prix racing.

“In 2004 I said the same thing to Altadis (owners of the Gauloises tobacco brand) that I wanted to stop with the sponsorship because in 2005 I wanted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Yamaha with corporate colours.

“This year is 50 years of racing and I have the same feeling. The door is always open for a sponsor to come but before we will show our brand with our corporate blue colours.

“Hopefully sometime this year some of the sponsors will come and knock on the door for Yamaha because next year I really want to get a sponsor.”

No title sponsor for the MotoGP team means Yamaha will be entirely self-funding its global factory road racing effort in 2011.

Earlier this week it confirmed that Marco Melandri and Eugene Laverty’s factory R1 machines in WSB would run in corporate blue having failed to replace Sterilgarda.