Katsuyuki Nakasuga to Make Wildcard Entry on YZR-M1 with Special 60th Anniversary Livery
All Japan Road Race Championship star Katsuyuki Nakasuga will make a wildcard entry in the Motul Grand Prix of Japan, Round 15 of the 2015 FIM MotoGP World Championship, scheduled to be held at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit in Tochigi Prefecture on October 11, 2015.
He will ride with the Yamaha Factory Racing Team on a YZR-M1 sporting special Yamaha 60th anniversary livery.
This will mark the fourth time in a row that Nakasuga has entered the Grand Prix of Japan in the MotoGP class. Including his 2nd place podium finish at Round 18 in Valencia in 2012, this will be his sixth time racing in the premier class.
Yamaha’s goals in this wildcard entry for the Motul Grand Prix of Japan include having Nakasuga, who is a development and test rider for the YZR-M1, evaluate the results of the YZR-M1’s development, but also to have the spectators feel the history behind Yamaha’s 60 years in racing through this special livery.
This season, Nakasuga is racing in the JSB1000 class of the All Japan Road Race Championship with the all-new 2015 YZF-R1. After four of seven rounds, he has three wins and is at the top of the standings on his quest to become the first-ever four-time consecutive champion of Japan’s premier class, as well as take his sixth career title.
Nakasuga also teamed up with MotoGP regulars Pol Espargaró and Bradley Smith for the Suzuka 8 Hours Endurance Race held at the end of July, and helped bring Yamaha its fifth Suzuka victory and the company’s first win in 19 years (since 1996).
Katsuyuki Nakasuga – “Of course, I have my development duties for this year’s Grand Prix of Japan, but being able to enter with special livery commemorating Yamaha’s 60th anniversary has me even more motivated than usual. I’ll do my best to show Yamaha’s strengths and how fast the M1 is together with Rossi and Lorenzo on the world stage, and I hope that I can make it a race to remember for Yamaha in its 60th year. Also, with the full factory entry, the debut of the new R1, and the goal of becoming a four-time consecutive JSB1000 class champion, I started this season with more pressure than I’ve ever felt before. But in both my main arena of the All Japan Championship and the Suzuka 8 Hours, we’ve performed very well. I want to keep this momentum with me going into the Japan GP so I can leave some satisfactory results, and then take them with me to boost my JSB1000 season. I hope everybody will come to cheer us on at the race!”
