Yamaha Motor Europe is delighted to confirm that reigning FIM Supersport World Champion Andrea Locatelli will join Toprak Razgatlıoğlu as part of the official Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team for the 2021 FIM Superbike World Championship campaign. With Garrett Gerloff remaining on the GRT Yamaha WorldSBK junior team for 2021, where he will be joined by Japanese ace Kohta Nozane, it means Yamaha will be fielding one of the youngest riders in the championship.
Andrea Locatelli enjoyed a stellar debut season with the Evan Bros Yamaha WorldSSP Supported Team, taking a record 11 wins to take the title with two rounds remaining in Barcelona. Prior to this year's success, the 23-year-old Italian arrives with six years of Grand Prix experience, during which he claimed two podiums in the 3 Moto2016 championship.
On his WorldSSP debut, Locatelli scored a masterful victory at Phillip Island and continued to make waves after the season restarted, winning the next eight races in a row and taking his total pole positions to six, while , last time at Magny-Cours, he broke another record, this time for the highest number of points scored in a single season. In 2021, the Italian will join the Pata Yamaha team to partner Phillip Island race winner Razgatlıoğlu, who remains in contention for third place in the standings ahead of the Estoril finale.
Garrett gerloff joined the WorldSBK championship after an impressive run in the United States, during which he was crowned MotoAmerica Supersport champion in 2016 and 2017 and took four victories to move up to third place in the 2019 MotoAmerica Superbike standings. impressed with his speed of adaptation to the WorldSBK championship and was fully integrated into the GRT Yamaha team, which in 2021 will use the latest Yamaha R1 machines, identical to the Pata Yamaha motorcycles.
Throughout 2020, the 25-year-old continued to progress and landed a podium finish with his brilliant performance at the second WorldSBK race in Barcelona. He also showed his winning potential in the opening race in the wet at Magny-Cours, on his first visit to the circuit. After a first season disrupted by the Coronavirus pandemic, remaining with GRT Yamaha for 2021 will provide Gerloff with the stability and familiarity that will be essential for him to gain experience on circuits where he has not yet raced.
The American will be joined on the GRT Yamaha team by
Kohta Nozane, leader of the 1000 JSB2020 MFJ All-Japan Road Race, who will make his debut in the WorldSBK championship next year. The Japanese rider was the 2 J-GP2013 class champion with Yamaha and has won several races in the competitive JSB1000 series. This year, Nozane leads the championship having won every race so far, with only two doubleheaders remaining.
In addition to his domestic experience, the 25-year-old also competed in the FIM World Endurance Championship with the official EWC Yamalube YART Yamaha team and boasts a MotoGP outing with Yamaha at the Grand Prix of Japan 2017 at Twin Ring Motegi.
Andrea Locatelli, Official Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team: “ I am very proud and grateful to start this new adventure with Yamaha, it is an important step for me after a fantastic first year in the WorldSBK paddock. Thanks to Eric de Seynes, President of Yamaha Europe, Andrea Dosoli, Road Racing Director, and Paul Denning, Pata Yamaha Team Director, for trusting me. I am very excited to start working with the new team and my new crew chief Andrew Pitt, who is a two-time world champion and has done a great job with Pata Yamaha. I can’t wait to start testing as well, it will be my first time riding the Yamaha R1 and I can’t wait to start my preparations for the 2021 season.”
Garrett gerloff, GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Junior Team: “I’m just super excited to stay with the GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Junior Team for the 2021 season. This year has been incredible; the people I work with on the team are exceptional, really positive and great, so it's fantastic to be able to continue with them. It will be nice to have a more normal year and have some consistency in the team, which will be great for me. I am also very happy to receive the new Yamaha R1. I hope that it will allow us to be even more efficient and to fight with the current leaders of the championship. Thank you very much to Yamaha for continuing with me and giving me another opportunity to improve and show what I am capable of. I owe everything to them and to my team manager Filippo Conti. I think we can do big things next year and I'm more focused and determined than ever.»
Kohta Nozane, GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Junior Team: “ I felt that WorldSBK would be the best place for me to continue to progress as a rider, so I'm really happy to have the chance to race on the world stage again and I can't thank Yamaha enough for this. opportunity. I will be competing against the best drivers in the world with different tires than I currently use, and almost all the circuits will be completely new to me, so I know it will be a huge challenge. But I'm proud to be one of the best drivers in Japan, so I want to leave my mark from the start to live up to the expectations of Japanese fans and earn the respect of racing fans around the world, and I will everything I can to be ready to run. I will be joining the GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Junior Team and Garrett Gerloff who finished on the podium with them in his first season, so I know they are strong and I look forward to working and progressing with them next year . We're in the middle of this year's Japanese road racing championship and I'm leading in points, so the goal is to enter WorldSBK as the Japanese JSB1000 champion. From there, my goal is to do my best in the last two rounds of the season to win the title. »
Andrea Dosoli, Yamaha Motor Europe Road Racing Director: “Yamaha Motor Europe is very excited to introduce this young and exciting team of riders for the 2021 WorldSBK season. This year we obviously bid farewell to Michael van der Mark, who has made a significant contribution to Yamaha's WorldSBK program since joining us in 2017 and to whom we wish good luck for the future. To replace him, we have a promising young talent in the person of Andrea Locatelli, who was already part of the Yamaha family. What he has achieved in WorldSSP this year is incredible and we can't wait to see what he can achieve alongside Toprak Razgatlıoğlu in the official Pata Yamaha WorldSBK team next year. For Garrett Gerloff, it was important to provide some stability after a first WorldSBK season disrupted by the Coronavirus pandemic, which is why he will remain with the GRT Yamaha WorldSBK junior team for 2021. He has shown this year that he is capable of fighting up front, even on tracks he is unfamiliar with, and so we are looking forward to seeing what he can do next season on the 1-spec Yamaha R2021 and with a strong team behind him. We are also delighted to welcome Kohta Nozane, who was the star rider of the All Japan Road Race JSB1000 Championship this year, to the WorldSBK paddock. It is important for the category and for Yamaha to have a fast Japanese rider on the world stage and this means we will have the exciting prospect of having four riders representing three different continents on the 2021 WorldSBK grid.”
