PETRONAS Yamaha SRT Independent Team Champions for Second Year Running

26-11-2020

PETRONAS Yamaha SRT Independent Team Champions for Second Year Running

Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo help secure top satellite team honours.

PETRONAS Yamaha Sepang Racing Team have proven to be the top satellite team for the second consecutive year, taking the 2020 MotoGP Independent Teams championship at Valencia two weeks ago and securing second place in the MotoGP Team Standings.

Franco Morbidelli’s victory at the Gran Premio de la Comunitat Valenciana secured the title and maintained a 100% Independent Team win record for the Malaysian squad since their debut in the premier class in 2019.

In what has been a challenging season due to the global pandemic, PETRONAS Yamaha SRT kept their nerve and showed from the very first round that they were a team to be reckoned with once again. Quartararo took two decisive pole positions and victories in the opening double-header at Jerez, before team-mate Morbidelli took to the Automotodrom Brno podium one week later.

Franco made the trip to the podium again three races later at the San Marino GP, where he took the first MotoGP win of his career. Fabio then backed this up with an impressive victory around Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Morbidelli racked up a further two wins during the season at the Teruel and Valencia GPs, before ending the season with a podium at the final round in Portugal.

Across the 2020 season Franco claimed three wins, five podiums, two pole positions and six front row starts, whilst team-mate Fabio racked up three wins, three podiums, four pole positions and nine front row starts. PETRONAS Yamaha SRT ended the year with an accumulation of 248 points, which was 65 more than their nearest competitor.

The 2020 PYSRT year in numbers:

Points - 248
Gap with the others - 65 points lead
Wins - 6
Podiums - 8 (6 wins, 1 second position, and 1 third position)
Poles positions - 6
Front rows - 15 (two riders combined, 12 races with front row start)
Fastest laps - 3
All Time Lap records - 1
Best Race Lap - 1
Laps leading a race - 155
Free Practices led - 17

Razlan Razali

Team Principal

"We have now completed our second season in MotoGP where we finished second in the overall MotoGP teams championship, Best Independent Team and second in the riders championship thanks to an amazing second half of the season from Franco Morbidelli - the 2020 MotoGP Vice Champion –, plus the Independent Team Rider title!

"We won the Best Independent Team title for the second year in a row and we saw our riders on the top step of the podium six times with three race wins for both Franco and Fabio Quartararo. It was an incredible season-start from Fabio and through his early race wins he and the team were on the top of the standings for much of this year. There have been so many emotions! It has also been a tough MotoGP championship this year with a lot of back-to-back races in such a short space of time, demanding extra effort from all the staff, which has shown again that teamwork can make anything possible. We tried to take the title to the final race, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to do so.

"We are really proud of our riders, team members and partners, and we are achieving what nobody expected. None of this would have been possible without the support and understanding of all them and we sincerely thank you all."

Johan Stigefelt

Team Director

"To achieve this title again in the second year is one amazing feeling. It’s incredible because we didn’t expect this when we started the team in 2019. Six wins, 8 podiums, overall, it’s something we could never imagine. This year started well and we felt we had a good chance of the championship title, team championship and best independent titles but of course we had our fair share of bad luck and bad results. The good thing is, one rider often covered for the other when the other didn’t do so well so both Franco and Fabio have contributed to win this Best Independent Team title. Everything is because of them, but also the team behind them doing such a great job, it’s a real team effort. Without the people behind the riders, the riders could not do their job.

"It’s so nice to get this title because it’s for the whole team and for everything we’ve worked for in the past two years. Thanks to everyone involved, all the partners, especially PETRONAS, without them, we wouldn’t be here so it’s a nice reward to give back something like this, to show we are doing our job and doing it well."