Yamaha has announced Michael van der Mark will exit Yamaha at the conclusion of the🌠 2020 WorldSBK Championship after four years competing together.

The Dutchman joined Yamaha from Honda at the start of the 2017 WorldSBK season and has firmly established himself as a race win contender on the R1, ev🌃en if he hasn’t ultimately been able to take the fight to the dominant Jonathan Rea.

Wi🍷th three WorldSBK wins and two successes at the Suzuka 8 Hours race under his belt, van der Mark will venture to pastures new at the end of the 2020 WorldSBK season.

With Yamaha simply saying in a statement that he is opting to ‘take on a new challenge in 2021’, there is no clear indication as to where van der Mark ౠmight go.

As it stands, only Kawasaki has a confirmed factory line-up for 2021, with BMW, Honda and Ducati still offering at least one seat for 2021 as it stands. Of these, BMW has been tipped as🐲 van der Mark’s most likely destination.

The news comes a little over a month befoඣre the 2020 WorldSBK season resumes, which in turn is more than four months on from the opening round in Australia. van der Mark began his season with a trio of top five results riding the latest generation R1, while new team-mate Toprak Razgatlioglu secured a race win on his debut with the team.

The 🤪revised schedule will see WorldSB🍎K restart at Jerez on July 31 – August 2, before heading to Portimao in Portugal a week later.