Hobelsberger joins Okubo at PTR Honda for 2020 World Supersport Season
German rider Patrick Hobelsberger will make the step up to WorldSSP full-time in 2020.
23-year-old Hobelsberger made his debut in the World Supersport Championship with a one-off ride in 2019 at Misano and the young German from Landau shows good potential for the future.
Hobelsberger said: “I am delighted to join PTR Honda and Simon Buckmaster for the World Supersport 2020 campaign. I am looking forward to working with the new team and to start a new chapter in my career with Honda. After competing in the German and Italian Championships and gaining experience in this hard-fought series, this is the next step to develop my racing career in World Championship.
“I am very, very happy that PTR Honda will give me this opportunity, as the experience and the know-how of the team speaks for itself. I will do my best in the upcoming campaign and work very hard to return the trust the team, and everybody involved has put in me. Furthermore, I would like to thank my sponsors, my family and my management for the support they give to me. Without this background it would not be possible to compete in the World Championship.”
The PTR Honda team have been involved in WorldSSP for several years; Performance Technical Racing is the organisation behind the highly successful Parkalgar Honda team that won 12 races and scored 29 podiums between 2008-2011. Since then, PTR have taken plenty of wins, with six more wins coming their way. With young talent given time to flourish, Okubo could be one to watch at PTR Honda in 2020.
Manager Simon Buckmaster said: “We welcome Patrick to our team alongside Hikari Okubo. I’ve known Patrick’s manager, Andreas Ledermann for a while and he has worked with some good riders in his time. He has great faith in Patrick and as always, we like to work with young riders and help them to achieve the success that they deserve. Hikari will be there as a benchmark for him and we are looking forward to the challenge together.
“Patrick will have a training bike so he will have ridden the Honda before the official testing with the team in January and in Australia before the first round so we are excited looking forward to the start of the new season. Now the rider line-up is complete we have some more exciting team partner announcements coming in the near future. Everything is shaping up really well.”
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