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Yamaha plan to replace the injured Valentino Rossi with Wataru Yoshikawa, a 41 year old test rider!

In similar fashion to Ferrari when they replaced Massa with Badoer last year, and we all know how well that turned out.

Casey Stoner has called this move "atrocious", for the obvious reasons. Imagine, this guy hasn't raced in about eight years and only has one motogp start.

Autosport - Test rider Yoshikawa to sub for Rossi

Autosport - Stoner: Yoshikawa call-up atrocious

Other Yamaha riders refused to step in for Rossi, so the choices were very limited.

Edwards would have been the only sensible choice but I guess he had his reasons or Tech 3 were not happy with him riding a factory machine.

The man does lots and lots of testing, so he'll know the bike inside out so all he really has to deal with is racing.

It'll also give Yamaha a better chance to get the bike nailed for next season. I'd expect some testing parts on that bike

No better test of a machine than in a race!

I see this as a purely testing thing, not much about trying to replace Rossi. But then, I'm not very well versed in MotoGP. I follow it, but not closely.

Edwards or Toseland would have been better, but they are doing a Ferarri for testing purposes, and with some new regs coming into MotoGP, this is the role it looks like they will do with him.

Pulling a Badoer as i call it... Give it 2 races and Edwards will get the call up.

At leas they have skipped the step of putting a 7 time champion on a 2 year old machine with Moto2 tyres for arround 4 days testing later to find out his neck is fecked.

Toseland wasn't good enough on the Tech3 to warrant a factory ride. I reckon they would have gone for Ben Spies if he wasn't a rookie.

Spies and the other Yamaha guys were offered the seat, but they declined I believe.

Spies said that it would be like being promoted to first class for a few races, but then being brought back down to coach, and he didn't see the need to have to do that unnecessary adjustment . Might as well continue with the tech3 if you're going to come back in a few months anyway.

ESPImperium wrote:...
At leas they have skipped the step of putting a 7 time champion on a 2 year old machine with Moto2 tyres for arround 4 days testing later to find out his neck is fecked.

I think Rossi's bike will now be a test bed for the 2011 bike.

Rumor has it for 2011 or 2012, im not sure what year, but this is the shakeup expected;

Rossi to Ducatti beside Hayden
Stoner to Honda beside Pedrosa
Spies to Yamaha beside Lorenzo

was on the front of MCN this morning.

I got a call the other day but I respectfully declined.

But seriously, should have been Spies in that bike. Not sure why he turned it down.

Spies is a rookie. The rules state that rookies cannot ride for a factory team.

andrew wrote:Spies is a rookie. The rules state that rookies cannot ride for a factory team.

Please provide a source for this statement if possible I am curious to see what rules these are

I want to see those regulations too, Andrew.

Although it's possible that they have changed since 2007, contradictions to that are how Jorge Lorenzo moved into the main Yamaha team straight from the 250 class. Dany Pedrosa did the same in 2006, but into the Honda squad.

I can't guide you to the actual rules but that is correct. Rookies are not allowed in factory teams so that satellite teams can get good riders (like Spies) for a season. New rule that came in this year. It is very problematic as this case shows.

Spies did not want to be fitted into the factory team like a spare wheel then shunted back to Tech 3 when Rossi returns so declined the invitation.

Thanks for the confirmation.

in the build up to the british gp the pundits where speculating that any replacment wouldnt get hte best of engines (as motogp has an engine limit too) and that a test driver would run around using old engines until rossi returned, giving him as many fresh engines as possible.

and thus no other rider wanted to turn up to rossis bike and not have the full package.

makes some sorta sense