It seems that, for the 2019 MotoGP season there is going to be lots of changes regarding the manufacturers of the different satellite teams on the grid. So far Tech 3 has confirmed that it will no longer line-up Yamaha bikes, Avintia and Angel Nieto Team have stated their intentions to get the place Tech 3 has left vacant in Yamaha, and Aprilia, KTM and Suzuki have admitted their plans to have private teams on a near future.
It is this last manufacturer, the Hamamatsu-based one, the one who has left its intentions of lining up a second team clearer. Those intentions can be traced back to 2016, when Suzuki was succeeding and team principal Davide Brivio gave his opinion about the advantages a second team could have.
It seemed that, during the 2017 season, the Japanese manufacturer tried to close a deal to have a second team starting from this year, but the Suzuki’s poor performance through the session forced the project to be postponed.
However, the good feelings both Andrea Iannone and Álex Rins shared during the pre-season testing days have allowed Brivio to re-take contact with different teams. Being Tech 3 apparently linked to KTM and with Avintia and ANT trying to be the new Yamaha satellite team, it seems that the best option could be the EG 0.0 Marc VDS Team, whose agreement with Honda ends at the end of this season.
“Our goal is to develop the satellite team project for 2019,” Said Brivio to Motorsport.com. “The question is to find the necessary resources inside our own structure. But we don’t have much time, we need to make the decision in a few months, I think that over the beginning of the season.
“I’m very optimistic, much more than last year,” Added Suzuki’s team principal. “That satellite team would help us a lot to evolve the bike because it would allow us to collect more data and follow different developement ways.”