One of the most coveted seats on the FIM Supersport World Championship grid has been taken for the 2021 season as Steven Odendaal will link up with BARDAHL Evan Bros. WorldSSP Team for the 2021 season. The South African impressed in his first WorldSSP campaign and will now link up with the team that helped take Andrea Locatelli to a dominant 2020 title.

Odendaal made the jump from Moto2™ to WorldSSP for the 2020 season and showed impressive pace and consistency throughout the 15 race-season, claiming 13 top-10 finishes and only failing to score on one occasion at MotorLand Aragon in Race 1 for the Teruel Round. Prior to joining WorldSSP, the 27-year-old won the 2016 CEV Moto2 championship in 2016 while also competing on-and-off in the Moto2™ World Championship between 2011 and 2019 as he started 54 races.

The Johannesburg-born rider won six races in his successful CEV campaign and took three further podiums on his way to the title. After making the switch to WorldSSP, Odendaal took a best result of fourth in 2020 after finding himself battling towards the front of the field more often than not, narrowly missing out on a podium after a titanic four-way battle in the last race of the season.

Odendaal described the opportunity to ride for the team that has taken the last two riders’ titles, saying: “I am really happy to be joining the reigning world champions, and I would like to thank my manager Jorge Lis for making this possible. I am sure we will do a great job together next year. It won’t be easy to repeat the results the team has achieved in the last two years but we certainly have the potential to do it. I had the opportunity to visit the racing department of BARDAHL Evan Bros. WorldSSP Team and I was really impressed: the whole team works with great passion and commitment, which is the key to achieve our goal.”

Team Principal Fabio Evangelista added: “We are very happy to welcome Steven to our team: having a South African rider is exciting and represents a new intriguing challenge. The last two seasons were full of satisfaction and our passion and commitment to improve did not diminish, in fact it probably doubled. Steven is an experienced rider who undoubtedly has what it takes to be in the WorldSSP championship battle: we are hoping to help him match the achievements of two of his great compatriots such as Greg Albertyn and Kork Ballington, two riders whose achievements on and off track contributed to my passion for the two wheels. I would like to thank our title sponsor Bardahl Maroil, who will continue with us on this adventure, Pata Snack, Yamaha Motor Europe, namely Andrea Dosoli, and all our sponsors who have been supporting us since the beginning of our dream. We have not scheduled a first test with Steven yet, due to the difficult situation we are experiencing, however we cannot wait to be back on track!”

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