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MEET THE TEAM

Crescent Yamaha brings 25 years of professional racing team experience across MotoGP, WorldSBK and British Superbikes to its partnership with Yamaha Motor Europe, competing as Pata Maxus Yamaha – Yamaha’s Official WorldSBK Team.

 

With Team Principal Paul Denning at the helm, the project is run in collaboration with Yamaha Motor Europe’s Motorsport R&D Division based near Milan, Italy. This multinational relationship has created a highly-experienced racing operation featuring technicians and engineers with a winning pedigree, all working to extract the maximum from the title-winning Yamaha R1 WorldSBK.

 

Following a highly-anticipated 2016 debut that yielded a maiden podium at the final round, 2017 saw the Crescent and Yamaha squad become regular contenders at the top, scoring six top three finishes amid rapid improvements in the second WorldSBK season.

 

The upward trend continued into 2018, and at the team’s home round at Donington Park, an emotional “double” with Michael van der Mark delivered Yamaha’s first WorldSBK victories since its retirement from factory-backed superbike racing at the end of 2011. A maiden win for long-time Crescent rider Alex Lowes followed in Brno, and a further 12 podiums capped off a successful breakthrough season – with van der Mark finishing third in the championship standings.

 

In 2019, the Crescent Yamaha podium and win tally continued to increase, scoring 17 podiums and a memorable victory in Jerez on the way to third and fourth-placed finishes in the overall championship standings for the same riders – this time with Lowes taking the bronze FIM Superbike World Championship medal.

 

2020 welcomed young Turkish rider Toprak Razgatlioglu to the team, who impressed immediately with an emphatic win in the first race of the year at Philip Island. Three more victories and 13 podium finishes followed to cap off a tremendous debut season on the Yamaha R1 WorldSBK.

 

The 2021 season will long be remembered as one of the greatest WorldSBK seasons in history, featuring a year-long battle between Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea for the crown that went all the way to the final round in Indonesia. With 13 wins and 29 podiums to his name, Toprak sealed the FIM Superbike World Championship in the first race of the weekend to bring Crescent its first world title.

 

It was made all the more special with new rider Andrea Locatelli, who joined the team after dominating the 2020 FIM Supersport World Championship. A stunning rookie season saw “Loka” score four podiums that contributed to Crescent winning the Teams’ Championship title and to Yamaha winning the Manufacturers’ Championship, combining with the Rider’s Championship of Razgatlioglu to take the “Triple Crown”.

 

Crescent and Yamaha vied for the championship again in 2022, where reigning #1 rider Razgatlioglu took an incredible 14 wins – one more than his title-winning season despite one less round – to become Yamaha’s most successful WorldSBK rider. Locatelli also continued to improve, taking his first front row start in Indonesia and scoring two podiums on his way to fifth in the final standings. A combined total of 31 podium finishes secured a clear second place in the Teams’ and Manufacturers’ Championships.

 

Though he just missed recapturing the WorldSBK crown in a closely-fought season, Razgatlioglu set remarkable statistics in 2022. His four pole positions and seven Superpole Race wins secured the overall Tissot Superpole Award, and incredibly he started on the front row in 32 of 36 races. He also achieved the largest “dry” WorldSBK pole position margin since 1992 on his R1, with a gap of 1.052s to second-fastest at the Mandalika International Street Circuit, where he also scored an outstanding hat-trick of victories.

 

2023 brought about a new team partnership name as Pata Prometeon Yamaha. A superb effort from Razgatlioglu in a tight Championship saw him take 32 podiums including seven wins, the Turkish rider finishing inside the top three every race but two to again finish runner-up. Locatelli enjoyed his best season to date, scoring a podium at the first round and adding a further seven across the year. Together, our rider’s 39 podiums took Crescent and Yamaha to a consecutive extremely close second place in the Riders’, Teams’ and Manufacturers’ Championships.

 

One of the biggest rider shake-ups in WorldSBK history played out in 2024. In an exciting and unexpected move, Crescent and Yamaha welcomed the most successful rider in the series’ history to the fold: six-time WorldSBK Champion Jonathan Rea. With many battles fought between Yamaha riders and Rea since 2016, the Northern Irishman’s pedigree and championship prowess is in no doubt, despite a difficult first season that ultimately unfolded.

 

Under no illusion about the challenge ahead in the ultra-competitive championship, Yamaha Motor Europe, the team and its riders aim to fight back in 2025, having relentlessly worked on development in every area across the winter in preparation to battle at the front of the field in every round.

 

2025 also marks Crescent’s 14th consecutive year in the FIM Superbike World Championship and its tenth with Yamaha, with more than 40 race victories and 150 podiums so far.

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2024 Crescent Motorcycles Limited

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