Riding off from the Pirelli Spanish Round’s Circuito de Jerez - Angel Nieto, Andalucia, some riders have already begun their offseason testing programmes; however, the record-breaking 2026 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship season deserves some reflection. Consistent dominance, dynamic debuts, continued upward trajectories, and disappointing performances were all on display in 2026, making it a season to remember for some more than others.
PAINTING THE TOP STEP RED
WorldSBK has seen dominance before in the form of Jonathan Rea's Championship hegemony, or Alvaro Bautista’s nearly untouchable 2023 season, but 2026 will stand alone as the most dominant season in WorldSBK history. Nicolo Bulega took an axe to the WorldSBK record books and tattooed his name across nearly every page. Among his record tallies, Bulega took 726 out of the maximum possible 744 points, took a podium in each and every one of the 36 races, breaking Rea’s record of 34 back in 2019, and took a record 32 wins in a single season, raising his total of 20 prior to 2026 to 52 WorldSBK wins, tying Troy Bayliss in fifth all-time.
Across the box, Lecuona had taken only a pair of podiums and a single pole prior to this season, but in 2026, he was the only rider to beat Bulega in a race in 2026. The #7 rode out of Jerez at the end of the season having missed the podium only in his maiden round in factory Ducati red at Phillip Island, and a crash out from P1 at Donington Park. The #7 had the silver medal in a headlock in 2026, breaking Toprak Razgatlioglu's 2023 record for most second-place medals in a season, with Lecuona landing P2 27 times over. Lecuona stands as the man to beat in 2027, even with talented new faces set to join the paddock.
A BATTLE FOR BRONZE WHICH WENT DOWN TO THE WIRE
Yari Montella's (Barni Spark Racing Team) third-place finish is all the more impressive when considering he finished his rookie 2025 campaign with the same team in 18th place in the standings. The sophomore Italian rider’s biggest step came in cleaning up his mistakes: he prevented the errors that caused costly crashes in his rookie season, and his pace did the rest, taking a P2 maiden podium in the season-opening race and finding a spot on the rostrum 13 more times in 2026. Sam Lowes (ELF Marc VDS Racing Team) and Alex Lowes (bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team) were inseparable on the order with the independent Ducati rider finishing just nine points ahead of his Bimota-powered brother. Sam enjoyed pace capable of fighting the factory Ducatis at points and finished with 12 rostrum results. Alex arrived at the final round in P4, a testament to his and his Provec Racing Team’s consistency; while the #22 only managed a single podium, he was a constant force in the top five. Their three-way battle between outright speed and consistent results ended with a Montella outgunning the brothers to P3, and a heroic last-round podium triple from the #14 shuffled his ever-consistent brother to fifth place.
SOLID STEPS FORWARD IN 2026
Returning to the WorldSBK paddock after a P18 finish in his 2023 rookie season, Lorenzo Baldassarri (Team GoEleven) impressed in his sophomore 2026 campaign. He showed an aggressive riding style, which earned him two podiums on the season. Behind him, Axel Bassani (bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team) made strides, taking his first podiums with Bimota in the form of a Philip Island double, improving his P10 finish on the 2025 order to a seventh-place result in 2026. The Italian manufacturer’s effort over their sophomore season back in the paddock has been impressive; they closed their second season in style with P2 in the Manufacturer’s title, with both riders in the top seven. Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki WorldSBK Team) showed similar improvement across the 2026 season, improving his 15th-place finish in 2025 to a tenth-place finish in the standings.
FOUR PODIUMS FOR EACH OF 2026’S TOP WORLD SUPERBIKE ROOKIES
Alberto Surra (Motocorsa Racing) and Miguel Oliveira (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) finished their rookie WorldSBK campaigns with four podiums apiece, but their seasons differed greatly. The #67 showed consistent progress, from P9 in his debut race, to landing a bombshell career-first podium triple in the season’s penultimate round at Estoril. Oliveira looked on a strong trajectory early in the season: a pair of top eights in his debut Down Under preceded a trio of home podiums at Portimao. He returned to the rostrum in the first race at Balaton Park, but a Sunday morning Superpole Race crash shattered that momentum, ruled him out of competition, and kept him out of the top five until Estoril.
RIDING UPHILL IN 2026
It was a bumpy road for Andrea Locatelli (Pata Maxus Yamaha) and teammate Xavi Vierge. ‘Loka’ was hot off a fourth-place finish in 2025, when he took his maiden win, but the closest he came to silverware in 2026 was fifth place in a rainy Race 2 at Phillip Island. Vierge donned Yamaha blue leathers for the first time in the paddock, but a step up from his seventh-place 2025 finish eluded him; he finished eleventh, with a season-best P6 at Portimao and Assen. The same largely applies to GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK teammates Remy Gardner and Stefano Manzi. It was only the Italian’s first season in WorldSBK, but the Australian saw his P11 finish last season fall to P16 in 2026. There are silver linings for Yamaha however, as strong performances across the board for the riders in blue at rounds like Assen and Misano nearly saw Yamaha to a third-place finish in the Manufacturer’s Championship, finishing a single point behind BMW.
Alvaro Bautista struggled in his first campaign with the Barni Ducati outfit; the Spaniard took P3 In Australia, but that would prove to be his only silverware of the season. He landed at least one top-ten result each round – omitting Most – where he was out with injury, and a heartbreaking pair of Race 2 P4s in the final two rounds of the season. Danilo Petrucci similarly struggled in his first season on a factory bike in WorldSBK. The #9 had the same rotten luck as his teammate, crashing at Most and breaking his coccyx, which kept him out of Aragon and Misano. He struggled to regain the speed he'd enjoyed before the injury, and bid his emotional adieu to the paddock amid a downpour at Jerez.
HONDA TURNING LEMONS TO LEMONADE
Honda HRC entered the 2026 season with optimism, with two new riders fresh from the MotoGP paddock: Somkiat Chantra and Jake Dixon. Preseason injuries forced Chantra to miss Australia and the Netherlands, while Dixon missed nearly half of the year with a persistent wrist injury suffered while training in the preseason Australia Test. Both riders began to show strides in earnest over the final rounds; however, as Chantra matched his season high of P13 earned at Misano a further four times across Cremona and Estoril. Dixon looked to be settling in even better, taking sub-top ten results in each race at Cremona, including a personal-best WorldSBK result of P6 in Race 2 there. Such results from both riders put the Japanese manufacturer on a positive trajectory heading into the winter.
Look back through a historic 2026 and past seasons OnDemand with the WorldSBK VideoPass!