Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis says having Dani Pedrosa on a satellite Yamaha in MotoGP next year would be a “pleasure”, as the Spaniard gets to set to leave Honda after 18 years.
HRC confirmed following the Italian Grand Prix that Pedrosa would be leaving the team at the end of the season by “mutual agreement”, with Pedrosa revealing during the Barcelona weekend that he knew his current contract would be his last when he signed it in 2016.
Pedrosa had been expected to opt for retirement, but now looks set to join a Petronas-backed satellite Yamaha team, originally thought to be the destination of Jorge Lorenzo before HRC signed him.
Jarvis says plans to run the customer M1s vacated by the KTM-bound Tech3 team are “progressing well”, and admitted to have always been “curious” to see how Pedrosa would fare on a Yamaha.
Speaking to motogp.com on Sunday at Catalunya, he said: “Let's say the situation is not confirmed yet, but I would say talks are progressing very well and I'm optimistic that we'll find a good solution.
“So hopefully within the next couple of weeks even, hopefully there might be some positive news about plans for 2019 and beyond.
“To see Dani on one of them? Dani's situation, this is something new that has come up in the last two weeks.
“I mean, if Dani is available and is keen to ride a satellite Yamaha, it would be a really positive thing and a pleasure for Yamaha to see that.
“I've always been personally very curious to see how Dani would go on a Yamaha, and we've had some discussions in previous years as well because whenever you're looking for riders, and it's always been kind of a curiosity in my mind.
“So if Dani would finally be one of the riders, I think myself and Yamaha would be only happy to see that.”
Pedrosa had been linked with Lorenzo's place at Yamaha for the 2017 season, should Maverick Vinales have opted to stay with Suzuki.
The Petronas-backed Yamaha team is tipped to take the place of the Marc VDS team, who is currently expeirencing internal troubles, with the Belgian outfit's current rider and Valentino Rossi protege Franco Morbidelli expected to join Pedrosa.
Morbidelli's team-mate Tom Luthi is reportedly looking at options to return to Moto2, having endured a tough maiden MotoGP campaign aboard the satellite Honda.
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