Yamaha Raci🌜ng managing director Lin Jarvis has revealed it was Valentino Rossi who made the initial approach regarding a return to the factory's MotoGP team for 2013.

Aft🎉er struggling at Ducati since the start of last year, Rossi will re-join Jorge Lorenzo at the official Yamaha team for the next two s🐭easons.

Rossi helped transform Yamaha's MotoGP fortunes when ♐he joined as the reigning triple world champion from Honda at the start of 2004.

However his final seasons saw the 𝓰relationship sour slightly as young team-mate Lorenzo grew in strength.

"The reas🍎ไon to have Valentino back with us is the seven years of excellent history we have together," said Jarvis at Brno on Thursday.

"We won four titles together, we made great history in the sport and alꦅso a lot of positive image for Yamaha. The decision to take Valentino back is to come back to th🅘e good times.

"It was not in my opin🌟ion a bad 'divorce' [at the end of 2010] and we had remained on good terms.

"I would say there had been some discussion in the background for🌞 some time [about a return to Yamaha for 2013] and the real negotiations probably began in July.

"Then, as Valentino clarified, he made his decision in the week after Laguna Seca. So the final negotiation was quite short, because we k🧸now each other well.

"Valentino made the approach to ex💛press his interest to ꦗreturn to Yamaha. So the first point of contact came from Valentino's side to Yamaha.

"We informed Jorg♕e at Mugello [mid-July] that there looked like there was a possibility 🍸to contract Valentino.

"I think Jorge would honestly have preferred to keep Ben [Spies] as his team-m൲ate, and that was the way we were going as well in our early mid-season planning.

"But finally Jorgeꦍ ♏respected Yamaha's decision to bring back Valentino and it is up to us to manage the situation.

"෴I can say t🧔hat Carmelo [Ezpeleta, Dorna CEO] had no influence whatever in the entire process. I have never discussed Valentino Rossi's return with Carmelo still to this day.

"We consider Jorge as our priority number one rider for the current championship and coming two seasons🐽. We consider Jorge to be the most capable rider to win the world championship.

"We had a lot of competition from Honda to sign Jorge and we did our ma🐽ximum to sign him. So Jorge is the key f﷽or pure results.

"Valentino has an enormous global awareness and popularity. There is no doubt he did great things for theඣ Yamaha brand꧂ and there is no doubt he can do still do great things for Yamaha and this sport.

"Having Valentino on a competitive motor🐻cycle will be very popular for MotoGP. This sport is going through difficult times and it is not aided by seeing the most popular rider in world down in sixth, seventh or eighth place.

"So seeing Valentino on a competitive bike - whe🎐ther Honda, Yamaha or Ducati - will bring benefit to all riders and all teams.

"We signed Jorge and we made our 🥂maximum [financial] effort. We will never go into financial situations, but I think Jorge is ꧑taken care of very well and we did not have a huge budget remaining for Valentino.

"Jorge has the num📖ber one tag because of his current performance and future potential, but we will treat both 𒀰rider exactly equally.

"During the discussio🦩n with Valentino we spoke about the past a♐nd I think the situation with the team will be different. Previously, Valentino was the number one and Jorge the arriving youngster. That created tensions.

"We have explained that we don't want to see any s⭕𒆙ituations [like Motegi 2010] where our riders will be endangering the result of the other. This is always difficult with two strong riders, so I don't say the next two seasons will be easy, but I believe we can manage that.

"Nꦬobody knows how competitive Valentino will be from the start. Jorge has two more years under his belt and is very fast and consistent. Dani is r💯iding superbly. Unfortunately Casey won't be there, but there are a lot of young fast riders.

"My opinion is that Valentino can definitely win races in the first season. Can he win a tenth gr𝐆and prix 🃏championship? I don't know. Time will tell."

Rossi won four o♚f his seven premier-class titles ♊and a symbolic 46 race wins for Yamaha.