Northern Ireland's Mar-Train Racing team chief Tim Martin has passed over the chance to compete in the British Superཧbike Championship next year to focus on landing the Supersport title.

The team made a stunning debut in the British Supersport class this year, narrowly missing out on cap⭕turing the title with Dublin rider Jack Kennedy as the championship went down to the wire at the final round at Brands Hatc🍸h.

Team principal Martin has already moved to sign♌ former British Supersport champion Stuart Easton for 2013 with a second rider due to be confirmed this week🔜.

However, Kennedy and yo♓ung prospect Taylor Mackenzie and not expected to remain in the lin✤e-up.

Mar-Train could have switched to the BSB ranks in 2013, ♐but Martin opted to remain in the Supersport division for another season with a view to making the move to BSB iಌn 2014.

"We wꦍere in talks with Yamaha this year about moving to British Superbikes for 2013," he told the Belfast News Letter.

"The idea wa🌜s that we'ཧd run one Supersport rider and a Superbike rider.

"But we didn't want to jump straight into Superbikes with a bike we'd never ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚraced before a꧃nd risk being uncompetitive.

"You can build a reputation up quite quickly but you can also destroy it quickly as well and we didn't want to go there to make the numbers u▨pಞ.

"If we go to BSB we want to ജgo and be competitive," he added.

"The idea with Stuart is 📖that he m🌺ay have the chance to move up to BSB in 2014 with us if he wants to do that and by that time we'll have experience of the R1 and at least a base setting to work with."

Few expected the team to make such a convincing debut in the championship, but Martin h𝓀ad left no stone unturജned in his preparations.

"It was always going to be a learning year for u🧔s as it was our first full year in British Supersport," he said.

"We had done a lo💞t of hard work prior to going to tဣhe championship because we've been running a team for six or seven years.

"We brought in Andy Jamison [crew chief] and a few others who have worked in the British championship padd𓄧ocks and that gave us a big head-start and brought us up to speed quite quickly.

"Even ♏t꧋hough we didn't bring the championship home it was a fantastic year."

Easton will also compete in the Mar-Train colours at the N♔orth West 200 in May, where he returns for the first time since a life-threatening crash in 2011.