Yamaha Motor Europe is pleased to announce its official entry for the 2019 FIM Superbike World Championship. The Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team will once again be Yamaha's flagship team, but this year they will be joined on the grid by the GRT Yamaha Supported WorldSBK Team, which will rise to first place in the production category for the 2019 season.
2019 marks the fourth year of the partnership between Yamaha and Crescent Racing and both parties are keen to build on the momentum of the 2018 season, during which Pata Yamaha WorldSBK riders, Michael van der Mark et alex lowes, won three races and finished on the podium 14 times. Van der Mark and Lowes remain with the team for the upcoming season, both keen to add to their tally in the 2019 championship.
Having achieved everything possible in WorldSSP, including winning the World Champion title crown in 2017, GRT Yamaha will face a new challenge in 2019, as the team prepares to compete for the first time in the FIM Superbike World Championship. Marco Melandri, former 250cc world champion and WorldSBK race winner, is joined at GRT Yamaha by Sandro Cortese, reigning WorldSSP world champion, who therefore swaps his YZF-R6 from last year for a Yamaha YZF-R1 WorldSBK for this season.
The Pata Yamaha and GRT Yamaha teams are currently testing in Europe, but in February both teams will travel south of the equator to test and then compete at the iconic Phillip Island circuit in Australia, venue for the first round of the Championship of the 2019 FIM Superbike World.
Andrea Dosoli, Yamaha Motor Europe Road Racing Manager: “We are pleased with the way the Yamaha Motor Europe racing program has progressed. We saw a marked improvement in 2018, with not only the coming of age of our YZF-R1, but also our track operations and our factory work. This is why I am very pleased to confirm that our partnership with Crescent Racing as our flagship team in WorldSBK will continue for the 2019 season, with Michael van der Mark and Alex Lowes once again as our drivers. I truly believe that continuity is essential to success in motorsports. If we can continue to work in the same way as in 2018 and strive to achieve the consistency that was perhaps missing last year, I am confident that we can take another step in the right direction. The 2019 season will be strategic for us. The arrival of GRT Yamaha in WorldSBK means we now have four riders on the grid, which gives us a good opportunity to accelerate the development of the bike, but it is also the final piece of our development program. We now have a young rider program in place that starts with the Yamaha bLU cRU project and extends through to WorldSBK with a competitive machine and team. I am therefore happy to welcome GRT Yamaha to WorldSBK with Marco Melandri and Sandri Cortese, the latter having won the 2018 World Championship on a Yamaha, which clearly illustrates the current rider development program. »
Paddock-GP translation
