A former Japanese Champion, Taro Sekiguchi will again ride this year for the Campetella Racing on a privateer Aprilia. Sekiguchi had already made several promising wildcard appearances when he left his testing role at Yamaha to join the Kurz Team in 2002. After several disappointing seasons on the outdated machine, he switched to Aprilia machinery for 2005, but crashes at the exact same Jerez corner in the 2005 pre-season and again in the opening round of 2006, both resulting in a broken leg, have hampered his chances thus far with Campetella Racing.