Yamaha set for WSBK return

Yamaha are set for a return to the World Superbike stage with their new R1 machine – but will wait until 2016, and instead concentrate on turning the machine into a competitive package at national level in 2015 before stepping up.

However, when they do return to the world stage, it won’t be with a full factory supported team as existed in their previous venture into the series back in 2011. Instead, they are looking to adopt the model now used successfully by a number of other WSBK front-runners and give semi factory support to a number of privateer teams.

And Yamaha MCE British Superbike team Milwaukee Yamaha could be the prime candidate for the move up, with European road race project manager Andrea Dosoli exclusively admitting to MCN at the team’s launch last week at the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP team workshops in Milan.

“The ultimate goal is to move to World Superbikes, but we will only do it when we are ready; we do not want to forget what we are doing now with supporting our teams a t a local level. But this new structure [of factory supported teams] is working very well, and we want to push it to the next level.”

“It is the case that we want to push this strategy, this new approach, and we’d rather have a team we can help support and push into World Superbikes, because if we’re fully concentrating on that ourselves with our own team then we cannot continue to support the other teams.”

“I would be more than happy if Milwaukee Yamaha could move to World Superbikes, because they have done a great job in British Superbikes. It is too early for us now to make a return, but we will do everything we can to support them next year if they want to move.”