Plater snapped up by Dienza.

The Dienza Performance British Superbike Team has signed Steve Plater to compete for top honours in the 2006 Bennetts British Superbike Championship.

The team will be running Dunlop-shod 2006 Kawasaki ZX-10R's for the forthcoming season and team owner Enzo Di Clemente is pleased to have finalised his line-up with just three weeks until the opening round at Brands Hatch.

"It's great to have Steve working with the team again," stated Di Clemente. "It was hard after what happened with Sendo last year but luckily people have stood by us to enable us to run Steve and Dienza Performance in 2006."

This move ends months of speculation about where the Lincolnshire-based rider will be riding this season. Thirty-three year-old Plater rode for the Sendo Superbike Team at the start of the 2005 season until financial constraints saw title sponsor Sendo taken into liquidation.

Signal Plus moved in to enable Dienza Performance to compete in the final two rounds at Donington and Brands Hatch. Steve finished the second half of the season with Hydrex Honda scoring a best finish of third at the last race of the season.

"Enzo has saved my season," Plater said. "It's good to be working again. It's a bit late in the day after what happened with Hydrex, I was left high and dry with all the other rides sorted. Enzo and myself have worked really hard to get the funding to run Dienza Performance for this season, but we've come good and saved our season."