Rossi and Lorenzo launch 2015 Yamaha MotoGP campaign

The Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team launched its 2015 season today with teammates Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo unveiling their new livery to the world’s media at the headquarters of title sponsor Telefónica in Madrid, Spain before settling down to speak about their title hopes for this year.

We are once again fortunate to have two great champions in the team and two of the best riders in the world: Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo.

Lin Jarvis

Joining Rossi and Lorenzo at the launch was the president of Telefónica España, Luis Miguel Gilpérez along with General Manager of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd’s Motorsport Division, Kouichi Tsuji, the Managing Director of Yamaha Motor Racing Srl, Lin Jarvis, and Movistar Yamaha MotoGP’s Team Director, Massimo Meregalli.

The 2015 Yamaha YZR-M1 retains the familiar overall dark blue and white colour scheme with a revised and resized Movistar logo and a refreshed livery.  Also presented were the Team’s new partners: Abarth, the FCA Group’s prestigious, sports oriented brand and Cromax, the global coatings brand for refinish body-shops. Abarth and Cromax were not the only new faces as Japanese technical clothing manufacturer Descente joins as the clothing provider for the team.

Following a photo session both Rossi and Lorenzo took questions from the assembled media on the new machine and their hopes for the upcoming season with Rossi chasing his 10^th World Championship title and 5^th for Yamaha and the ‘Doctor’ finishing second overall last year while Lorenzo looks to get off to a better start this year compared to a disastrous first half of the 2014 season.

Rossi and Lorenzo ready to get on track in Sepang next week

With the first official test of 2015 scheduled to take place at the Sepang International Circuit next week (4^th-6^th Feb), both Rossi is excited to see the progress of the Yamaha engineers on the new M1. He said, “To present the bike and team means that a new season is about to start. The desire to start a new challenge is really huge, especially after the positive end of the 2014 season. Finishing second in the world championship was important, but this year the goal is even higher.

Yamaha have worked so hard during the winter, and me too. I am in good shape, I feel good, I'm training a lot and I'm ready to begin the hard work at the Sepang test. The new bike is really beautiful; I really like it. Now I want to meet up with my team and work with all of them to achieve the best possible results. It will be a very interesting season. I will have very strong opponents, starting from my teammate who will surely be better prepared this winter. It will be important to do a good test and arrive at the first race with everything in the right place, then we will be ready to fight for victory,” Rossi added.

Lorenzo revealed that he has been training harder in the off-season this year and feels more confident about the upcoming season. “This event always means a special date for all of us,” Lorenzo said who continued, “It’s the official kick off of the season and I have to say it’s usually a special moment because we can see the final project and also the new livery. I love the new bike and I’m waiting to test it as soon as possible. With this unveiling starts a new challenge, an amazing challenge. I am much more motivated than ever to start this season. I have prepared well physically and I feel good mentally too.

This year we have high hopes with the new M1 because in 2014 we found at the end a good base and we could fight for the podium regularly during the second half of the season. I am convinced that this year things will change and both Yamaha and I will put all our efforts to try to achieve the goal that is simple: to fight for the title. Last year many things happened but I've also learned a lot and I think we can compensate and make a great year. I’m waiting to kick off the coming season in Qatar!“ Lorenzo added.

Telefónica President Luis Miguel Gilpérez said he is happy to continue with the partnership with Yamaha and revealed that in the past year they increased their number of customers from 700,000 to 2 million. He said, “We will bet for motorcycling once again in 2015 with the focus not only on our clients but also on the people who are not. We will offer them the chance to ride the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP bike, while sitting in front of their own TV’s, so they can see that we are capable of offering the best TV, the best sport and show with a new form of accessing it, from all of their devices with a multi screen option.”

Yamaha racing boss Lin Jarvis is very happy to have the continued partnership with Movistar and is convinced Rossi and Lorenzo will be fighting for many victories this year. He said, “This year we have decided to present the new bike at the home of Movistar, at the Distrito Telefónica in Madrid. The “M” for Movistar on the fairings of our M1 is even bigger this year representing even greater union between us. We are once again fortunate to have two great champions in the team and two of the best riders in the world: Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo. Both want to achieve their goal, to win races and to win the title and I am sure they will be committed to work together as Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team Factory riders to make their bikes faster and more competitive to challenge our competitors.

From our side I can assure our riders that Yamaha Motor and everybody in the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team is committed and focused to provide them all the support they will need to achieve their and our mutual goals. I am very excited to start the new season and we are ready to challenge together for victory in 2015.” Mr Jarvis added.