Bike It Cosworth signs Arnaud Tonus for 2011.

08 Dec: The 19 year-old Swiss star was very happy after testing the bike of Zach Osborne and visiting the workshop in England. A deal was concluded to partner Zach Osborne in the World MX2 category for 2011. After a string of good results this year and a podium at the last GP in Italy, Tonus finished 7th in the 2010 World Championship just 7 points behind 4th place Zach Osborne.

Steve Dixon: "I had a phone call from Laurens KleinKoerkamp of Yamaha Europe about the opportunity to take on Arnaud Tonus and a collaboration between Yamaha Europe, Yamaha UK, Yamaha Switzerland and myself suddenly saw a test and a deal put together for Tonus within days.

I spoke to Cosworth about the project and they were excited at the prospect of two top riders battling for the World Championship podiums and agreed on all the extra parts needed to take on the factory teams.

For me in the MX2 (and 125) class I have taken Paul Malin, Carl Nunn, Brian Jorgensen, Andrew McFarlane, Billy Mackenzie and Zach Osborne to their first GP victory and I am sure in 2011 I can add Tonus to that list.

It gives us a good solid base as a team and I think it will take a little pressure off Zach in the World championships. I believe we can achieve a good balance of team moral just like in Formula One teams with two top riders battling together. We are learning such a lot from Cosworth who have such a huge amount of experience at top level in racing not just in engineering but in everything we do as a team.

Aside from Zach and Tonus I am really conscious about the lack of British MX1 riders doing the World championship so after a year competing the ACU British MX1 championships for us this year I am putting Jason Dougan in the World Championships for 2011 and it is great that he lives only 15 minutes from the workshop, Jason is only just 23 and I believe could surprise a few people, he had some good GP results in 2008 with CCM and he is working very hard together with Zach.

After an injury struck 2010 season I will put young Ed Allingham in the seven rounds of the 2010 EMX2 series. I think having the seven round European championship series together at the same time and venue as the GP is a perfect stepping stone to GP's, it is such a big step from a National championship to GP's that this was badly needed. Before the championship was at different venues and dates so logistically for us we could not do the series.

So that's is us for 2011 a four man team covering all the classes.

I also want to take this opportunity to wish Mel Pocock every success with his new British Championship ride at TAS Suzuki. It will be a shame not to see Mel at the GP's or Europeans but he will be fighting for podiums at the British with our guys.

For me 2011 is my 22nd year in GP's year and I could not have stayed at the top without all of my great and loyal sponsors so together with them I hope we can add the World title to the trophy cabinet.