PBM announced their return to the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship last month and since then the double title-winning team have been laying the foundations for their BSB comeback as they prepare to fight for a third title with Shane 'Shakey' Byrne and Stuart Easton.

The team are now preparing for the season ahead in their quest to add another BSB crown to the two consecutive BSB titles they celebrated in 2002 and 2003 with the late Steve Hislop and Byrne respectively. PBM are back in BSB following four seasons in the World Superbike Championship and are currently making preparations ahead of their test schedule which kicks off in the New Year with the factory-specification Kawasaki ZX-10Rs.

Team manager Paul Risbridger said:

"It has been busy with the team since the end of last season, the initial rush obviously came with us securing the riders that we wanted to have in the team for next year; signing Shakey and Stuart was a big priority for us. We were then able to confirm the Rapid Solicitors sponsorship at the Motorcycle Show at the NEC and then it has been a lot of planning behind the scenes with the team.

"For us we have spent a lot of time working through the changes we will need to make to the Kawasakis in order to conform to the 2012 BSB technical regulations. It has been a case of working on what we can still use and then looking at what we need to change and develop. In addition to that we have been liaising with the likes of Showa regarding the suspension and generally putting the final details into place with some of our other partners. On paper there won't be too many differences, or as many as people might expect. It will be a case of getting everything working together, for example riders will need to consider tyre life more than they may have done before and in some cases will need to find a compromise. That is why we signed Shakey and Stuart, because we know they have the experience to hit the ground running from the moment we start testing."

The team will begin assembling the Rapid Solicitors Kawasakis for battle in the coming weeks once the bikes return from Macau following the recent race; however Risbridger is confident that they have already completed a lot of the ground work and are aiming for the bikes to run before the end of January.


Risbridger added:

"At the moment the bikes are currently being freighted back from Macau, they should arrive back at the workshop over the coming week. Although they haven't been here, the team have been putting in a lot of groundwork in terms of preparation so that everything is ready to go when they arrive. In fact everything is pretty much in place, the wiring looms are nearly completed so we are ready to start assembling as soon as the bikes return. We aim to have them running at the end of January so we can have a shakedown prior to our full test programme. Testing is a very critical part of the season for everyone in the team and we are going to work hard in preparation for the season as we want to hit the ground running with results from the opening round at Brands Hatch in April."

Next year will be the team's most ambitious in their history as they compete simultaneously in both the MotoGP and BSB Championships and that is something that Risbridger admits the team is relishing as they take on the new challenge.

"2012 will be a hugely different year for the PBM team," he added. "We will obviously have the two divisions with the MotoGP and BSB teams and it terms of logistics they couldn't be more different. Last season we obviously came back to base during the season, whereas next year in BSB we will come back after every event. This is completely different to MotoGP where at the moment we only intend on the truck coming back maybe twice during the whole season. It will be two completely different extremes and another big part of recent weeks has been dealing with equipment now that we have two divisions with the CRT project in addition to our BSB campaign. We have divided everything where possible and then have added on both sides of the team. Our personnel line up has also been critical and we have some members of the team working on the BSB side of things and then others on the MotoGP campaign. We have divided the team into two as we wanted to ensure that the same core remains as we know their previous experiences are going to be so important.

"Our motivation as a team to come back to BSB is to win the championship. It won't be easy, but we have clearly set our goal and we know what is needed in order to achieve that. There are members of our BSB team that have obviously been part of winning titles before, but the championship is different now and we know we need to adapt quickly. On paper we have all the tools for the job ahead and now we are looking forward to getting started."

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