"Andrea and Yamaha have shared a strong partnership for many years now, and we are delighted to announce that he is staying with Yamaha Factory Racing MotoGP for three more.

"Dovi is not only a MotoGP legend with superb riding skills, but he also possesses technical knowledge and can effectively give feedback to the engineers. This makes him an ideal test rider, for sure, but we saw the opportunity to make further use of his talents within Yamaha's MotoGP Project.

"Besides him signing on as Test Rider, which we believe is instrumental to our MotoGP bike development programme, we're also excited to see him take on the new role of Rider Performance Advisor. This will allow Yamaha to successfully gather crucial data and efficiently share insights between all four Yamaha MotoGP riders and the Yamaha engineers."