Yamaha will compete in the 2006 Supersport World Championship with Australian riders Kevin Curtain and Broc Parkes racing the brand new Yamaha YZF-R6 for the Yamaha Motor Germany team. The squad will again receive official support from Yamaha Motor Europe and is already working on development of the new machine. To ensure they are ready to compete for race wins from February’s opening round in Qatar, Yamaha has provided the team with early production machines and a range of kit parts, allowing the team to complete a private shakedown test several weeks ago. Yamaha Motor Germany is now focusing on engine development at its Neuss base and Curtain and Parkes are scheduled to get their first full test of the race machine in December. Yamaha Motor Germany won the Supersport World Championship in 2000 with rider Jörg Teuchert and has opted to retain the services of both its 2005 riders following their impressive performances this season. Curtain is currently second in the championship with one race win, last time out at EuroSpeedway Lausitz, while Parkes is sixth in the standings in his first year with the team. Yamaha’s all-new YZF-R6 was unveiled to the world’s press in Paris yesterday. The new machine is the company’s most technologically advanced production model to date and boasts an impressive specification including an innovative electronically controlled throttle system, new chassis, completely redesigned and more powerful engine and a slipper clutch fitted as standard. Once again Yamaha is offering a full range of racing kit parts for the YZF-R1 and YZF-R6 through its YEC (Yamaha Engineering Corporation) company. Full information on the kit parts including downloadable images is available at www.yamaha-racingparts.com – information on the 2006 YZF-R6 can be found at ~http://www.yamaha-motor-europe.com/products/motorcycles/supersport/yzfr6.jsp ~and full biographies of Kevin Curtain and Broc Parkes can be found at ~http://www.yamaha-racing.com/supersport/riders.asp~ Kevin Curtain “I’m really excited about next year and I’m honoured to be one of the guys trusted with the development of the new R6 in world supersport. It’s an amazing looking bike and everything I’ve heard about it so far makes me believe we can make a challenge for the title. I have a lot of faith in the Yamaha Germany team and I am sure they are up to the challenge. I certainly can’t wait.” Broc Parkes “I’m really happy with this team and the deciding factor in me staying for 2006 was seeing the new bike that we’ll have. It looks really, really good and as things are just starting to come together for us now in terms of results so it wouldn’t make sense for me to switch teams and have to start again. For now I want to end the season with two good results so that we can start the development work of our new toy on a high!” Terrell Thien (Team Manager) “Both Theo Hoffmann (Yamaha Motor Germany’s motorsports manager) and myself felt it was very important to keep Kevin and Broc for next year. Everybody knows Kevin’s ability while Broc has shown us what he is capable of in the last three races – he is one of the top riders in the championship and is still young and full of potential. We are very happy with the support Yamaha is giving us: all the technical data suggests to new R6 will be very competitive and already we have an engine running on the dyno with good results. We’ll start our testing programme in December and I am quite confident we will be well prepared for the start of the season.”