After dipping a toe into the waters at Monza last season, Yoshimura Suzuki will race a wild card entry at Phillip Island for the opening round of WSBK racing in 2011. Riding for the team is 2009 Australian Superbike Champion Josh Waters, who will get to compete in front of a home crowd. There is no word yet as to the team’s entrance in other rounds, despite attempts to do so last season, which saw a lack of funding keeping the team from their previously scheduled racing at Imola and Magny-Cours.
Waters nearly made an American Superbike debut last season, replacing an injured Blake Young for the American arm of the Yoshimura Suzuki team, but only managed to complete a short practice at Laguna Seca and did not race, due to his own injuries. He “has also won over 80 national Dirt and Long Track titles in his career,” according to the WSBK website.
While there had been some speculation online that Yoshimura would return at Phillip Island, it was only confirmed by the official site today. In 2010, they were to have raced at Assen, but the Icelandic volcano that made such a shambles of the early racing season disrupted those plans.
Instead, the team raced at Monza, and hoped to continue at Imola and Magny-Cours, though the lack of funding that has so adversely affected racing in the past year also made its mark on the Japanese team, leaving them to focus on what was then classified as an entry for the entire 2011 season, but so far that has only turned into the Phillip Island wild card entry.
Source: WorldSBK
Comments