Davies switches to Aprilia team

Davies is changing teams in the US for the new season

Herefordshire star Chaz Davies is to ride for the KWS Factory Aprilia team in this year's AMA series.

Davies told BBC Hereford and Worcester he was delighted to have sorted out his future as the credit crunch means decent rides have been hard to come by.

"It has been a long winter as there have been so many changes in the motorsport industry," he said.

"In America there have been changes in the rules and everything has taken along time to filter out."

The 21-year-old Powys-born man raced in the 125cc and 250cc Grand Prix World Championships for five years while he also picked up spare rides in MotoGP at the end of 2007.

Davies is still the youngest rider to score points in a World Championship event.

It's going to be interesting as we're riding a bike that has never raced in this championship before

Herefordshire rider Chaz Davies

He spent last season with the Attack Kawasaki team and, while there were undoubted high points along the way, Davies admits there were also many frustrations.

"I went in with the mindset of winning at least one championship and a lot of races, but for one reason or another it just didn't happen," he admitted.

"We got that one win at Daytona and one other podium, but we had a lot of races towards the middle and end of the season that were going really well, but there were so many stupid things which upset my races.

"Then the field was so deep last year that qualifying was particularly important and there was more than one weekend when nothing seemed to go my way.

"It's going to be interesting as we're riding a bike that has never raced in this championship before.

"There are a lot of different possibilities as I am going to be riding a 1,000cc bike and riding against 600cc machines, but I've got a lot of extra weight to contend with.

"It's going to make for some interesting weekends and it's all going to be about finding our feet for the first part of the year."