Yamaha confirms factory WSBK attack.
Yamaha's officially-supported Yamaha Motor Italia squad has confirmed that it will switch from the World Supersport Championship and enter a two-rider team in the 2005 World Superbike Championship.
Yamaha Italia's announcment comes only days after Crash.net revealed that Noriyuki Haga and Andrew Pitt had possibley signed for the team.
Yamaha's officially-supported Yamaha Motor Italia squad has confirmed that it will switch from the World Supersport Championship and enter a two-rider team in the 2005 World Superbike Championship.
Yamaha Italia's announcment comes only days after Crash.net revealed that Noriyuki Haga and Andrew Pitt had possibley signed for the team.
Yamaha's Italian distributor has been one of the most active teams in the history of WSBK. Between the inauguration of the series in 1988 and 1994, Yamaha Motor Italia, under its former name of Belgarda, financed and managed its own superbike programme - taking several race wins and regularly finishing in the top five in the series championship.
In 1995, when Yamaha decided to make an official entry into the championship it was only natural that the factory team was based at the Yamaha Motor Italia workshops.
Yamaha withdrew from the series at the end of the 2000 season, after Noriyuki Haga finished second in the championship, to concentrate on development for the YZR-M1 MotoGP project and explore new four-stroke technologies.
It is now believed that Haga has signed for Yamaha Italia to head up their 2005 World Superbike challenge.
Between 2001 and 2004 Yamaha Motor Europe focused its attention to supporting the YZF-R6 entry in the Supersport World Championship, campaigning Andrew Pitt late this year.
Although Yamaha are yet to confirm the rider line-up for its 2005 world superbike campaign, Crash.net's Secret Squirrel source believes that Haga signed for the team on Monday 19th October, with Pitt soon to follow.
"Racing is part of our company's spirit and an important marketing tool for Yamaha Motor Italia," commented Claudio Consonni Yamaha Motor Italia Racing General Manager. "We have been involved in world supersport for many years and have never hidden our desire to return to a series we have been involved with from the first days of the championship.
"The team, headed by former superbike and supersport rider Massimo Meregalli, has an experienced group of engineers, many of whom previously worked with the factory superbike team. They have already started work building the bikes and we are all really looking forward to our new challenge."
The bikes Yamaha Italia will be using next season are thought to be similar to the bikes debuted by Sebastien Gimbert at the final French round of WSBK this season. The bike was suprisingly competitive, taking fourth place on the grid and two fourth place finishes in the two races.
Following Yamaha's successful season with Valentino Rossi taking the MotoGP championship, the Japanese manufacturer hopes to dominate all the major World motorcyling championships.
In order to do this they will need a proven race winner, like Haga, to head the Superbike team. Haga was in with a chance of taking the WSBK championship up untill the penultimate round of the championship from Imola.
"Next year is Yamaha's 50th anniversary," said Laurens Klein Koerkamp, Yamaha's European Racing Operations manager. "Racing is part of our corporate DNA. In 2004 we enjoyed possibly our greatest ever season with Valentino Rossi winning the MotoGP world championship and Stefan Everts enjoying his fourth straight motocross world title with Yamaha. I am pleased that we will mark our anniversary by challenging for all the major world championships."
