It was a raucous weekend of MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship racing at Donington Park, featuring three of the four classes and providing race after race of edge-of-your-seat action from Friday to Sunday. Among the weekend’s undersung heroes were WorldSBK’s Tommy Bridewell (Superbikes Advocates) and Xavi Vierge (Pata Maxus Yamaha), WorldSSP’s Jeremy Alcoba (Kawasaki WorldSSP Team), and from WorldWCR, Roberta Ponziani (Klint Racing Team) and Chloe Jones (Monster Energy Crescent Yamaha).
BRIDEWELL REPRESENTING A NATION, AND VIERGE REPRESENTING A MANUFACTURER
Tommy Bridewell has shown a massive step over the last three rounds, and he didn’t disappoint at home. The 2023 British Superbikes champion joined the WorldSBK paddock as a late addition to the grid at Portimao, where he and his team would normally place around the edge of the point-scoring positions. Fast-forward to now, however, and the Brit was a force to be reckoned with in the top eight, tying his best WorldSBK result in P5 of Race 1, placing in the points in the Tissot Superpole Race, and riding in the top six before suffering an unfortunate tech issue which forced him to retire from the final race of the weekend. Elsewhere on the grid, Xavi Vierge was the silver lining of a tough weekend for Yamaha. The Spanish rider finished all three races in the top ten and tied his P5 qualification at Assen for his best Superpole session results of the season so far. The Superpole session will be an important opportunity for Yamaha R1 riders to improve, as the only times Vierge has broken into the top eight have been in races where he started from the top 10 or better.
A LONG-AWAITED RETURN TO THE PODIUM FOR ALCOBA
WorldSSP sophomore Jeremy Alcoba closed the 2025 season on a red-hot run, taking two podiums over the last three races; momentum which many thought would effortlessly translate into 2026. This season, however, has been a much more challenging affair for Alcoba and his two-time WorldSSP Champion teammate Dominique Aegerter, who, while the #52 has finished every race in the points and landed a P4 in the first race of the Hungarian weekend, hasn’t had the pace to fight for a top three in 2026. That all changed at Donington, as Alcoba at last took his Kawasaki ZX-6R 636 Ninja back to the podium in Race 1 for the first time since Jerez 2025, and complemented the result with a P6, his third result in the top six in three races to close the round.
CONSISTENCY FROM PONZIANI AND A BREAKTHROUGH AT HOME FOR JONES
Ever-consistent Roberta Ponziani has only missed the top six once this season and hasn’t always been able to finish on the podium in 2026, but at Donington, her diligence paid off as she took her second podium of the 2026 season. She did well to pull away from the other riders fighting with her for P4 and set herself up to inherit the podium when Paola Ramos (Klint Racing Team) and Maria Herrera (Terra & Vita GRT Yamaha WorldWCR) made contact and the #58 crashed out of the race. Having landed her maiden podium last round at Misano, Chloe Jones wasn’t quite on pace quick enough to return to parc ferme at her home round, but the highlight of her weekend came in Race 2 when she finished P4. She was penalised by FIM Stewards in Race 1 for exceeding track limits on the final lap, forcing her down one position from P5 to P6, however she was in the fight for the final podium place. To close the weekend, she dropped down to P6 for the vast majority of the race, until a desperate charge over the last two laps past Muklada Sarapuech (Yamaha AD78 FIMLA by EEST NJT Racing) and being promoted up one place after Ramos’ crash. In what’s been a challenging season for Jones so far, back-to-back rounds fighting for the podium is a welcome sign of progress.
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