OFFICIAL PROGRAMME
KOHTA NOZANE
GRT YAMAHA WORLDSBK TEAM
“
When I thought of stepping up to the world stage , WorldSBK was the perfect possible option for me . The skills that I ’ d learned in the All Japan JSB-1000 Championship can be applied to WorldSBK , although there are differences in tyres and such . It ’ s kind of difficult for me to describe my character , but it ’ s often expressed by my radical riding style , so I suppose that could be one of my characteristics . I ’ m experimenting with different riding style to try to be faster . I like racing video games and radio-controlled cars . I have two drifting radio-controlled cars and I enjoy playing them on my days off . In five years ? I ’ m not good at planning for the future and just trying my best at the moment , which is I will put all my strength in fighting this year . Then there will be a happy future waiting for me .”
EXCITING CONTENT
Andrea Dosoli , Yamaha Motor Europe Road Racing Manager
“ Yamaha is offering a step up program not only to the riders already within the WorldSBK platform but also to the best young talented riders from the most important national Championships , a strategy that proved to be successful with Garrett Gerloff , and that confirms the worldwide strategic value of the WorldSBK platform for Yamaha . Nozane won the JSB1000 Championship , showing a consistently improving performance , therefore we ’ re happy to have offered him this important chance at international level . Nozane is fast and , despite his young age , he has good experience , being involved in several development activities , MotoGP™ included , he can bring an important contribution to our WorldSBK project . On top of this , he has a unique and spectacular riding style that has already generated huge attention and interest from Media and our fans around the world and especially in the Asia area . The coming season will be a difficult challenge for him , as he needs to discover new race tracks that also are offering different characteristics compared to the ones he is used to . Being a rookie in WorldSBK , we expect him to learn from each practice session and race . We ’ ll support him as much as possible in this learning season , offering him the latest technical package and dedicated coaching , acknowledging that he will be able to express his potential better in the second half of the season .”
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