Milwaukee Yamaha team chief Shaun Muir has refused to rule out a possible link-up with Michael Dunlop after the Northern Ireland road racing star parted ways with Honda on Tuesday.

The race is on to secure the 24-year-old’s signature and Muir admits the prospect of the seven-time Isle of Man TT rider on Yamaha machinery next season is an ‘appealing’ one.

However, Muir – who has already signed the returning Ian Hutchinson for 2014 with Josh Brookes also poised to be unveiled in the Milwaukee outfit – stressed that his immediate concern was to finalise his team’s plans for next year’s British Superbike Championship.

“Although Michael may be available – and yes, we could be interested – I’d have a lot of thinking and planning to do before we could consider slotting him into the team,” Muir told News Letter Sport today.

“We’ve got Ian Hutchinson signed already for next year and we’ve some more news to announce soon on another rider.

“I’ve a big commitment with the riders we have signed already, so there’s a lot that would need to be resolved first,” he added.

“That being said, we helped Michael with his 600 Yamaha a couple of seasons ago and there’s big talk about wanting to do something again with the 600 Yamaha – but at the moment we need to concentrate on finalising the BSB announcement next week and obviously we’ve got ‘Hutchy’ competing at Macau as well.

“My official line at the moment is that we’re very close to announcing our rider line-up but we wouldn’t discount an interest in Michael, because a rider of his calibre would clearly be of interest to any team.”



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