Jerry Burgess hopes Valentino Rossi will stay at Yamaha

Valentino Rossi’s legendary crew chief Jerry Burgess is hoping the nine-times world champion will pen a new deal to remain with Yamaha’s factory MotoGP squad in 2011.

Rossi’s contract with the Fiat Yamaha squad expires at the end of the current campaign and the 31-year-old has once again been linked with a big-money deal to rivals Ducati. 

But Aussie Burgess is hoping Rossi, who won the season’s opening race in Qatar last month, will commit to ride a YZR-M1 machine again next season.

Rossi and Burgess transformed Yamaha’s fortunes back in 2004 when Rossi opted to quit Honda in a shock move.

Since then, Yamaha has dominated the MotoGP world championship with Rossi winning in 2004, ’05, ’08 and ’09.

And Burgess told MCN: “I’d be much more comfortable with him at Yamaha than anywhere else if I can be selfish. There are a lot of people who would like to see him finish at Yamaha. (Masao) Furusawa has pointed that out a number of times.

“From a marketing point of view he’d be remembered as a Yamaha rider. If he went somewhere else it would be for a very short part of his career and it may not be successful. The loss to Yamaha would be great, but to balance that on the other side you have a team that’s strong who has encouraged a young rider to come and they’ve given him support.

“In a normal relationship the young bull should be taking over from the old bull, but Jorge has come up against a bit of a wall.”

Speculation is rife that Rossi and Lorenzo will not be together for a fourth consecutive season in 2011 at Yamaha.

Lorenzo is already the subject of big interest from Repsol Honda again and given Rossi’s unrivalled record, any change at Fiat Yamaha would likely result in a move for the Spaniard.

Lorenzo has made it clear he wants to remain with Yamaha and Burgess added: “In an ideal world to hang on to both again would be great. Otther companies would like to break up this group, particularly with Ben (Spies) coming. I don’t think Ben will want to go anywhere in a hurry. You could see Valentino and Ben together in 2011 and that’s not bad. It could be Jorge and Valentino or even Jorge and Ben.”