Will Yoshimura survive?

[Big T]

Suzuki has broken their ties with Yoshimura

https://www.roadracingworld.com/new...mer-named-suzukis-premier-race-team-for-2020/

Brea, CA (December 13, 2019) ? Suzuki Motor of America, Inc. announces it has reached an agreement with Team Hammer to become its official team for the 2020 MotoAmerica AMA/FIM North American Road Racing Series. In addition to their continued participation in Supersport and Twins Cup, Team Hammer will now field Suzuki?s premier Superbikes and add the Stock 1000 class to its list. The team enters the series as Team Hammer Suzuki. Riders for each class will be announced later.

Don Sakakura, President of Yoshimura R&D commented on the unparalleled relationship between Suzuki and Yoshimura that spanned some four decades: ?Yoshimura?s partnership with Suzuki has been instrumental to our core business the past 41 years,? said Sakakura. ?As a team, we accomplished tremendous racing milestones, leaving behind many special celebrations, as well as setbacks. Personally, it has been a true privilege to have worked closely with management and staff at Suzuki. The friendships I?ve developed will carry over my lifetime. Notably, the engineering team at Suzuki?s Japan headquarters has been extremely significant in our successes over the years.?

Suzuki echoed Sakakura?s comments and thanked Yoshimura for its contribution to 212 race wins and 14 Championships in the AMA Superbike class, the most of any manufacturer.

Kerry Graeber, Suzuki?s vice president of sales and marketing stated that the Suzuki Yoshimura relationship remains strong. ?Though Yoshimura won?t be operating our road racing team moving forward, we look forward to continuing together in many other aspects of our business.? Graeber noted that Yoshimura remains integral with JGR/Suzuki, the company?s supercross/motocross race team, as well as several sales and marketing programs. Graeber sees that not only continuing, but also possibly expanding.

Note: Reports from SX watchers are that Suzuki is not supporting any teams for 2020/ Also, Yoshimura found out about this change from the press release

 

[GregT]

Yoshimura will survive. The US affiliation with Suzuki is a large part of their racing - but by no means all of it. Worldwide sales of Yosh parts are still strong.

It'll be interesting to see if Yoshimura diversifies as Mugen have. The Mugen electric racebikes are the current state of the art.

 

[Rob S.]

...Yoshimura found out about this change from the press release

That can't be a good sign.

 

[steve murdoch]

I don't know a lot about this subject but is Team Hammer run by the Ulrich family?
So does this mean that there will no more Yosh parts and ONLY be Suzuki race parts in the bikes?

 

[GregT]

I don't know a lot about this subject but is Team Hammer run by the Ulrich family?
So does this mean that there will no more Yosh parts and ONLY be Suzuki race parts in the bikes?

The parts aspect is quite convoluted...Supersport and to a certain extent World Superbike are becoming more stock parts oriented. Suzuki did a kit for World superbike entrants - which is not generally available to the public. I've seen parts of it in a couple of engines built by Suzuki NZ's engine man. With the more stock focus in the last couple of years, I think this kit is discontinued.
On the other hand, National level series which are still in some cases more open than the World regs are the market for the Yosh parts - as is sidecar racing.
The sidecars use the GSXR1000's for F1 and the GSXR600 for the TT and new World series. Yosh sells a lot of parts for both, from cams and valvetrain parts to ECU's and looms. Suzuki themselves don't offer this stuff to my knowledge.
There's still a wide market out there for the Yosh product.

 

[GS1150Pilot]

Very dignified response by Sakakura

 

[Spyder]

The REAL question is, will SUZUKI survive?