Josh Waters will join John Hopkins at Tyco Suzuki as the TAS outfit retains an American-Australian combination for next season’s British Superbike Championship. The team does say goodbye though to Josh Brookes and PJ Jacobsen who are both moving on to pastures in 2014.
Waters endured a tough rookie season in BSB this year but feels he has learned from the experience and expects to be much stronger on the Suzuki GSX-R1000 next year.
“I am really happy and excited to be joining Tyco Suzuki for the 2014 season. I’ve spent a lot of years racing with Suzuki in the past, and every year I was with them, they were very successful for me. TAS Suzuki is a team I’ve followed for a long time, and it goes without saying, Hector and Philip Neill run a great team. I’m currently back home in Australia, but I can’t wait to start testing the GSX-R1000 Superbike for the 2014 season. I’m looking forward to it already and partnering John Hopkins in the Tyco Suzuki set-up is an added bonus.”
Team Manager Philip Neill is delighted to have secured the services of Waters, a rider he has been chasing for quite some time.
“It’s great to be able to announce our final British Superbike signing for 2014 in Josh Waters, which now leaves us to concentrate on the important task of further developing the GSX-R1000 Superbike in readiness for testing in the New Year. Josh really is the ideal candidate to join us at Tyco Suzuki, having spent seven years racing GSX-R machinery in Australia; in addition to two very successful outings at the Suzuka 8-Hour with Yoshimura Suzuki.”
“I have known Josh since 2009 and have looked at a number of options to bring him to British championship. Now that we finally have the opportunity to work together, I’d like to formally welcome him to Tyco Suzuki. I’m confident we haven’t seen the best of Josh and everyone at Tyco Suzuki will be working hard to ensure he has the tools to show exactly what he is capable of in 2014.”
Neill has also offered his thanks to long servant Brookes, who looks set to join Milwaukee Yamaha, and Jacobsen who shone in various classes with the team.
“We had a very enjoyable three year period with Josh Brookes which included 11 wins and numerous podiums in BSB, and we have also paved the way for what will undoubtedly be a successful road racing career for him. We got involved with PJ Jacobsen as an absolute BSB rookie, first in Superstock, then in Supersport, before moving into British Superbike with him fairly rapidly. He had a strong debut season, but however as they say, ‘all good things come to an end’ and we’d like to wish both riders every success in the future.”