Lin Jarvis said an agreement has been reached with the three-time MotoGP™ winner to continue their partnership next year
Tags MotoGP, 2021, Cal Crutchlow

Speaking in a special Team Managers Press Conference on Friday at the Gran Premio Motul de la Comunitat Valenciana, Yamaha Motor Racing Managing Director Lin Jarvis confirmed Cal Crutchlow will continue as the factory’s test rider in 2022.

The British rider retired from full time racing in MotoGP™ at the end of the 2020 season, but since then, Crutchlow has taken part in four GPs with Yamaha. First with Petronas Yamaha SRT as a stand-in for Franco Morbidelli at the Styrian and Austrian GPs, before replacing Maverick Viñales in the Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP ranks at his home GP at Silverstone and in Aragon.

Crutchlow was first seen back on a Yamaha at the 2021 pre-season test in Qatar, though, with the three-time premier class race winner taking part in several private tests during the season too – most recently in Aragon and Jerez, where Crutchlow was lapping on a 2022-spec YZR-M1.

"HE HELPED ME UNDERSTAND MANY THINGS" - VIÑALES ON CRUTCHLOW

Speaking in the Press Conference, Jarvis affirmed that although it isn’t officially confirmed, an agreement between Yamaha and Crutchlow has been reached for the number 35 to continue in his testing role next season.

"Yes, we will do more testing for next year, so this is a clear commitment from the mother company, and we will still run a hybrid operation where we will use a lot of Japanese staff together with European staff. We will have more European staff on the team, but we will continue to have this combination at each location,” said Jarvis.

“We will definitely continue with Cal. We haven’t signed, but we’ve agreed terms and Cal will stay with us in the future. That’s already decided.”