MICHAEL VAN DER MARK JOINS PATA YAMAHA OFFICIAL WORLDSBK TEAM
Yamaha Motor Europe is pleased to announce its official challengers for the 2017 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship, as talented Dutchman Michael van der Mark joins current rider Alex Lowes in the Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team. Dutch rider van der Mark has achieved many successes in his 23 years, becoming champion in both the FIM European Superstock 600 and Supersport World Championship in 2012 and 2014 respectively. Progressing to World Superbike in 2015, he has secured eight podiums and one pole position to-date across the past two seasons and showed an increasing maturity, speed and hunger to win. Van der Mark’s drive to succeed is a perfect complement to Lowes and the YZF-R1 for 2017, ensuring Yamaha has the best tools to fight for victories from the opening race.
Michael van der Mark: “I’m very much looking forward to this new challenge with Yamaha. I could see the potential of the R1 during its first World Superbike season this year and I’m convinced that with further development and the full support of Yamaha and the team I will have the right package to fight for the World Superbike title next year. It is never an easy decision to leave a team and a manufacturer after so many years and successes, I will always remain grateful for the support received and I will give my maximum for the remainder of this season to get as many podiums as possible.”
Eric de Seynes (Yamaha Motor Europe Chief Operating Officer): “Yamaha’s new commitment to the Superbike World Championship has started in 2016, and now we look forward to using the lessons learned in this ‘comeback season’ and the increasingly strong relationship with our racing partner Crescent, in order to challenge for the top positions in 2017. We are delighted and excited to have Michael joining Yamaha in 2017. At only 23 years of age, he is already a World Champion and is fighting at the front of WorldSBK – this is very impressive! Importantly, the rider line up demonstrates our philosophy of choosing two young riders, both who not only have the talent to fight for victory in WorldSBK but also the capacity to potentially grow their careers with Yamaha in the future. In this way, Yamaha would like to use the World Superbike series as a platform to demonstrate its racing spirit with the production based YZF-R1 and also to develop further the family of Yamaha riders – Michael is a perfect fit inside this philosophy and we are very excited to welcome him to the team.”