Yamaha enters 2005 Superbike World Championship

21/10/2004

Yamaha Motor Europe's officially-supported Yamaha Motor Italia squad will switch
from the Supersport World Championship and enter a two-rider team in the 2005
Superbike World Championship.

Yamaha's Italian distributor has been one of the most active teams in the
history of the Superbike World Championship. 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 exploring new four-stroke technologies also for the
benefit of future production models. Between 2001 and 2004 Yamaha Motor Europe
focused its attention to supporting the YZF-R6 entry in the Supersport World
Championship.

Yamaha will confirm the rider line-up for its 2005 world superbike campaign at a
later date.

Laurens Klein Koerkamp (Yamaha Motor Racing - European Racing Operations manager):

"Yamaha Motor Europe felt the time was right to return to world superbike. Our
MotoGP programme is now firmly on track and since we last competed the
regulations have been changed to allow four-cylinder 1000cc sportsbikes to enter
the championship. The R1 is Europe's best selling supersport bike and has
already proven its competitiveness in 2004, winning the Endurance World
Championship and claiming the top four positions in the European Superstock
Championship. We are sure that our return to world superbikes will further
reinforce the R1's sporting image.

"Next year is Yamaha's 50th anniversary. 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."

Claudio Consonni (Yamaha Motor Italia Racing General Manager):

"Racing is part of our company's spirit and an important marketing tool for
Yamaha Motor Italia. 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."

Yamaha Motor Germany will manage Yamaha's sole official entry in the Supersport
World Championship with Australians Kevin Curtain and Broc Parkes riding the
2005 model YZF-R6.