Factory and Satellite Bikes

A satellite team is just another racing team. They don't have their own bikes, unlike a factory team which makes its own bikes, so they buy/lease bikes from a factory.

What bikes and their relationship to the factory is all negotiated and a contract is written up to cover the things you ask about.

Which bikes they get? All negotiated with factory and each team is different. Yamaha satellite teams, get last years bike, so do most satellite teams but it doesn't have to be that. Some Ducati teams get two year old bikes.

They will come to agreement with the factory about everything. Will they test parts, will the factory provide riders or do they find their own, how much help will the factory give them throughout the year, etc. All that is different for every satellite team and different for each factory.

And when the contract is over the both decide if they want to start another contract and if they do it's all negotiated again.

Cal, on a satellite team actually gets a full factory bike. They might even pay his salary, not sure about that.

When Miller was on a Honda satellite team, Honda paid his salary but didn't give him a factory bike. Not even a year old bike, it was some other piece of crap they had on hand.

So there are numerous combinations of ways a satellite team can be setup.

Cal is on a full factory RCV - same as MM and Pedrosa.
Zarco is on 2017 Yamaha as used by VR and Mv last season'
Jack is on a 2017 Ducati

Satellite bikes are today referred to generically as any bike that is not a part of the full factory official team, however this is a change on years past where satellite bike would mean a leased bike that receives no ongoing factory support (although they could purchase upgrades etc).

There are also satellite teams (Tech3 etc) who do not have the full factory equipment but do or may receive a level of factory support as part of their ongoing contract with the factory/supplier.

The confusing point is that you may have a satellite team but where the rider is a full factory contracted rider (think Cal) and as such, that rider receives factory support for some aspects (bike, performance parts etc) but team support in other areas (mechanical technicians).

then there are also many variants as now it all depends on contracts

In years past we also had privateers where they would buy a bike and 'run it as they brung it' so to speak but those days disappeared a long, long time ago for many reasons.

Satellite riders all get paid differently based on their contract with the satellite team.

Some get factory money, as mentioned, some get paid by the team and some even pay the team to allow them to ride.

Karel Abraham pays to be on the team (rich daddy).

Petrucci used to test parts for factory, riding same year bike as factory team.

Gaz said:

Zarco is on 2017 Yamaha as used by VR and Mv last season'

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Someone mentioned that he is back on the 2016 bike.

Theo said:

Someone mentioned that he is back on the 2016 bike.

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I believe that is correct and the factory Yamahas are using the 16 chassis and calling it the 18 from what I remember.