MOTOGP: Yamaha boss proud of neutrality

Yamaha MotoGP managing director Lin Jarvis believes his ability to maintain neutrality helped the team cope with the pressure of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo's declining relationship during 2015.

The renewal of Rossi and Lorenzo's partnership at Yamaha in 2013 was initially much more amicable than their previous time together in 2008-'09, when Rossi secured the erection of a wall in the team garage so he could work separately to his 250cc graduate teammate, as he did not feel the team could support two number one riders any other way.

Rossi created feud with Marquez, Lorenzo says

But tensions arose again as they disputed the 2015 title, with Rossi believing Marc Marquez was hampering him to assist Lorenzo, and Lorenzo calling for stronger punishments for Rossi following his clash with Marquez at Sepang and trying to get involved in the Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing into the case.

"I think one thing that helps is I'm not either Italian or Spanish," said Jarvis. "And that's said as a joke, but it's also not a joke. If you're able to be neutral and remain neutral, that's very important.

"There's a lot of nationalistic influence that can come in – if you're Spanish, you should support the Spaniard, if you're Italian, you should support the Italian.

"I've had a lot of experience in this game. I've some positive and some negative experience. That helps you stay calm in situations that are very stressful. I don't have medication, but I really like G&T... That also helps at the end of the day...

"It's a matter of being true to yourself and not panicking, and trying to find solutions. The solution for each person in a problem is different, and it's very important to search for their solution. It's never easy to manage any single champion and it's even more difficult to manage two. It's been hard, but we've managed."

Jarvis hopes the late-2015 controversies will be forgotten by the time the '16 campaign starts.

"Enough is enough with talking about the polemics, what happened and who did what," he said. "I'd rather we can avoid the ongoing polemics and just focus on the sport."

Originally on Autosport.com