After more than two decades at Yamaha, working in various positions, Paolo Pavesio has been chosen to succeed Lin Jarvis this year as head of Yamaha Motor Racing. At 53, the Italian manager has no shortage of ambition for the brand with the three tuning forks.
Having worked in marketing for a long time, how do you approach the challenge of competition?
At Yamaha, marketing and competition have always been linked. We believe that when we produce a product that can race, we should race it. During my years at Yamaha Europe, I helped set up the structure involved in motocross, the Superbike and Supersport activities, the R3 World Cup, but also the Blue Crue programme, of which I am particularly proud. Today, we have more than a thousand young riders, aged 8 to 15, who are part of this programme.
Is it difficult to succeed Lin Jarvis?
I would say it's more of an honour. No one can replace Lin. He set up Yamaha Motor Racing in 2003, the year I joined the company. With eight world championship titles and twenty-six seasons in the MotoGP paddock, he is a legend in the world of motorcycling. What I like about taking over from him is that it's an internal succession. I know that Lin mentioned my name when it came to finding someone to take his position. The transition was smooth, especially since he remains an advisor for Yamaha. I'm lucky to still be able to count on him.
Lin took the lead of the MotoGP programme at a time when Yamaha was struggling, the brand's last title dating back to 1992 with Wayne Rainey. You are taking over at a similarly delicate time for Yamaha. Can we draw a parallel?
What I know for sure today, and it may have been the same 25 years ago, is that there is a lot of motivation throughout the company, throughout the organisation, to make this turnaround a success. And I have also learnt over the years that it is never the success of one man that can completely change the situation. Success comes through team effort. There is the motivation, there are the resources, there is a new way of working, which I also like very much, because in my experience in Amsterdam, one of the things I enjoyed most, whatever the subject of the work, was working with a global team. Yamaha Europe was also responsible for marketing for all the world markets, let's say, where European products were sold. And that's what I like, bringing people and culture together for a common goal. I think that's the goal of this project, to show that we can be back, working in a new way, Japan and Europe together, not in parallel, not separately, but really together.
Tell us about the changes that have been made to help you get back on the road to victory...
We have four riders again thanks to the arrival of the Pramac team in the Yamaha family. We saw it from the first tests of the off-season, this is a real plus. It all had to be put in place, but we now have a very well coordinated structure of engineers in both teams who share data to learn from each other. I am very happy with the state of mind of the Pramac team, which has joined us with great enthusiasm. Together, we have also set up a new team in Moto2 to train young people. All of this is part of the same ambition to regain our place at the top as quickly as possible.
How does the collaboration between Japan and Europe work today?
I joined Yamaha Europe in 2014. At that time, the board of management had seven members, two of whom were non-Japanese. Today, there are eight people on the board of management, the president is not Japanese and seven of the eight members are European. This idea of being more open, this idea of developing the company from a Japanese company to a global company that was born in Japan, with its head office in Japan, is now very visible, also in MotoGP. Added to this is the fact that Italy is today to MotoGP what England is to Formula 1. Logistics, sports management, development... Europe is a key player in the world of motor sports. However, many things are still done in Japan. Let's say that we have working groups in Japan and Italy, but we make sure to avoid duplication. There are groups that work together on different subjects and most subjects are still conducted in Japan, but there are always people who bring knowledge from Europe and there are areas where Europe is clearly ahead, such as aerodynamics.
