Prado’s pursuit is false, according to the Yamaha MXGP team

The structure of the Grand Prix for next year is still being decided.

The recent rumors of Jorge Prado moving from Red Bull KTM to the Monster Energy Yamaha team are unfounded, according to Yamaha Motor Europe.

The 20-year-old Spaniard’s name had been linked with the factory team following Yamaha’s disappointing start to 2021, with only two podium finishes between Glenn Coldenhoff, Jeremy Seewer, and Ben Watson.

Yamaha has been linked to Prado a lot in the last month as the manufacturer looks to replicate their success in MX2 with Maxime Renaux at the wheel, and speculation has been circulating about Prado’s future at KTM, where he has spent his whole career.

“There is a lot of noise and rumours about this rider, but it is not Yamaha’s game to go for a rider that is signed with another brand,” underlined YME’s offroad racing manager Alex Kowalski.

“That is not the way we want to do things. If a rider is coming to the end of his contract then that is another game but this is not the case with Jorge.”

Yamaha might be dissatisfied with the season to date, which has been affected by Jeremy Seewer’s bout of Epstein-Barr virus and with Coldenhoff also searching for podium contention consistency.

Watson, the team’s rookie, has impressed with top-ten speed, but he has also struggled in Russia, Latvia, and the recent Turkish double. The British rider is presently ranked 10th in the standings, and Yamaha has yet to confirm his participation in the team with Coldenhoff and Seewer, both of whom have 2022 contracts.

The UK’s sole works rider in MXGP’s procrastination also fuelled speculation that Yamaha was considering changing the third member of the line-up, or perhaps running two riders on the YZ450FM.

“It’s not completely fixed yet and we will see what happen during the next GPs, but the target is to fix the same rider line-up in both MX2 and MXGP,” Kowalski offered.

“Ben is a super-nice guy and super-loyal to the brand. He’s been with us a long time, won MX2 races for us and we had the chance to let him step up into a factory MXGP team with a one-plus-one contract. We wanted him to show what he could do.

“At the moment the season has been quite tough for him. He’s had some good moments and he’s a fighter – he has everything. He’s an athlete and the riding style is there, but he is lacking a bit still to fight with the big guys of the MXGP class.

“He demonstrated some [potential], but we are still waiting for some strong results. We are not asking him to be world champion or to be winning GPs, but to be part of the fight. Turkey was a struggle, but the team is fully behind him and he needs to work to see how he can improve.

“You don’t put such a rider in a factory team to then not try to find a solution, so we need to find something to continue to support him.”

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