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Valentin Debise (ZXMOTO Factory Evan Bros Racing) and Chinese manufacturer ZXMOTO made FIM Supersport World Championship history in Portugal when the French rider claimed a double win at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve. It was ZXMOTO’s second round in the Championship after they linked up with the Evan Bros Racing squad and Team Manager Fabio Evangelista has reacted to their historic Pirelli Portuguese Round.

INSTANT THOUGHTS: “Dream come true… something incredible, something crazy”

The announcement of ZXMOTO was made towards the end of 2025, with the Chinese brand linking up with Evangelista’s squad for their maiden WorldSSP campaign with riders Debise and Federico Caricasulo; neither rider are strangers to the team. In Australia, the #53 put the ZXMOTO 820RR on the front row, but nobody could’ve predicted the success at Portimao in Round 2 as Debise claimed two wins – becoming the first Chinese manufacturer to win in World Supersport.

Discussing Debise’s victories, Evangelista said: “We probably don’t even fully realise yet what we’ve achieved in such a short time with this new bike and a new manufacturer, founded in February 2024. It’s a dream… a dream come true. Something incredible, something crazy — the result, first of all, of the extremely hard work of the entire team, who believed in this project from the very beginning. It comes from the motivation and huge passion that define us, as well as the experience and professionalism, we’ve built over the years in WorldSSP. I don’t think we needed to prove to anyone that we were good enough, but I do believe we wanted to prove it to ourselves by taking on a new and difficult challenge, raising the bar even higher. Honestly, we took a huge risk. We’re very emotional right now but we’ll all be back at work on the project, analysing the data and pushing to improve — we’re never satisfied.”

EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS: “In my mind, short- to medium-term meant from the second half of our first year together to the first half of the second”

Evangelista initially spoke about the project at EICMA in November 2025, where he stated the potential of the bike for the short- to medium-term was to achieve strong results, but Evangelista admitted that his timescale last year had been exceeded following Debise’s wins. He stated: “At EICMA, I wanted to be very optimistic, honestly. In my mind, short- to medium-term meant from the second half of our first year together to the first half of the second. We didn’t know what to expect for the first round in Australia, given how young the project is, and to be honest, the front row was a big surprise — mainly thanks to an unbelievable (110%) ride from Valentin, who achieved more than we could have ever expected. In Portugal, he gave even more. I think it’s clear to everyone that since 2024, Valentin has become one of the best riders in this Championship and we didn’t choose him by chance, with continuous growth confirmed by his wins and podiums in 2025. It’s equally clear that the team, in such a short time and with huge support from the manufacturer, managed to build a bike that perfectly suits him — while with Caricasulo, we haven’t fully achieved that yet.”

RANKING SUCCESS: “The double victory we achieved in Portugal this weekend gave us a new taste, something we had never experienced before”

The Evan Bros Racing team have enjoyed enormous success since making their WorldSSP debut in 2016, taking a podium on their debut with Caricasulo when running with Honda. They switched to Yamaha for 2018, with Randy Krummenacher joining the squad, before expanding to two riders for 2019 – Krummenacher and ‘Carica’ – who finished 1-2 in the standings. In 2020, Andrea Locatelli (Pata Maxus Yamaha) joined the team and he dominated the season, before they claimed victories with Steven Odendaal in 2021 and Lorenzo Baldassarri (Team GoEleven) in 2022. They’ve also won several Teams’ Championships, including last year when running the Yamaha R9, while they won the 2024 WorldWCR title with Ana Carrasco (Honda Racing World Supersport) too. So, where does Evangelista rank the ZXMOTO win among all this success?

“We’ve been fortunate to experience many unforgettable and emotional moments over the years,” he began. “It all started with the first round of the 2016 WorldSSP Championship in Australia, during our first participation in the Championship, when we immediately secured a second-place finish in the race with Federico Caricasulo. Then came our first world title with Randy, followed by the one with Locatelli. We also can’t forget the many wins and podiums achieved in the years that followed, as well as the emotional season with Ana Carrasco. These are memories we will never forget. But the double victory we achieved in Portugal this weekend gave us a new taste, something we had never experienced before.”

A TITLE CHALLENGE? “Our shared goal for this season was — and still is — to develop the bike together… But we certainly won’t be the ones to hold back Valentin’s ambition.”

After two rounds and four races, Debise sits third in the standings with 50 points from his Portimao haul. He is 21 points behind standings leader Jaume Masia (Orelac Racing VerdNatura) and 15 behind Albert Arenas (AS BLU CRU Racing Team) in second, although Evangelista stated that the Championship wasn’t the goal right now.

He said: “Being third in the Championship after only two rounds doesn’t really mean much for any rider, in my opinion. What matters for Valentin is already being able to fight with the other top riders, which in itself is a remarkable achievement. Our shared goal for this season was — and still is — to develop the bike together with the team and ZXMOTO, making it competitive. But we certainly won’t be the ones to hold back Valentin’s ambition.”

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