The 2026 grid isn’t just changing – it’s erupting
Every season, WorldSBK evolves – sometimes substantially and sometimes incrementally. The 2026 season began two days after the end of the 2025 decider, with a veritable October Revolution in the rider and (almost as importantly) crew chief line-ups.
We will even have an entirely new class in 2026, in the shape of the FIM Sportbike World Championship, which will replace the WorldSSP300 category with engines of much greater capacity, controlled by balanced power outputs.
So far so great, as there is a much wider range of competing manufacturers in year one than the WorldSSP300 class had in its entire history. There will be six in all: Aprilia, Kawasaki, Kove, Suzuki, Triumph and Yamaha.
With all this sporting and human-focused revolution going on, there is one big headline hanging above the WorldSBK hardware store.
The manufacturer from the always non-conformist Red City of Bologna has now brought forward a conventional tech step in Ducati’s latest homologation of the previously all-conquering V4-R. It’s got a twin-sided swingarm, sure, but there are many more race-focused changes than you can see from the photos.
Predictably, the nearly-champion in 2025 Nicolo Bulega was fastest of all on the new bike after the immediate post season October test at Jerez. Less predictably, his new teammate Iker Lecuona (ex-HRC Honda) was second fastest.
There were no Ducatis at the November Jerez test at all, which was the final one before the traditional on-track Christmas ceasefire.
Fastest rider was Alex Lowes (bimota by Kawasaki Racing team), who only rode for one day to preserve his allocation of permitted test days.
Second quickest was the instantly successful match of Xavi Vierge and the ex-Jonathan Rea Pata Maxus Yamaha R1. Tom O’Kane is Vierge’s new crew chief.
Seasoned R1-campaigner Andrea Locatelli (Pata Maxus Yamaha) was the third-fastest rider on the final day. He has long-time Alvaro Bautista crew chief Giulio Nava as his new pitbox boss – now that Bautista has moved over to the Independent Barni Spark Racing team.
In the first post-Razgat, post-Rea and non-factory Bautista season – coming to a seaside town near you very soon, of course – Bulega starts as the hottest favourite for many years.
He will face a serious number of new faces and riders who have now all had at least one outing on their new bikes – even if some were not allowed to speak about it at the time.
Both official BMW riders are recent signings. Miguel Olivera (with Andrew Pitt his crew chief) is all new to WorldSBK itself, while the multi-talented-in-multiple-disciplines Danilo Petrucci is a WorldSBK factory rider for the first time ever.
They were both at the November Jerez test, with the fastest rider on the M 1000 RR actually being the recently declared test rider Michael van der Mark.
Even more true newness came from the HRC Honda effort, which has changed team managers and both riders for 2026. Look at it closely and there is not only an upsurge of existing talent joining different teams inside the ‘home’ paddock, but the MotoGP refugees this year run to Olivera, Somkiat Chantra and recent Moto2 runner Jake Dixon in WorldSBK with Honda, plus Josh Whatley, 2020 Moto3 world champion Alberto Arenas, and Moto3 race winner Marcos Ramirez in the WorldSSP division.
Despite the irreplaceable loss of Toprak Razgatlioglu to MotoGP, WorldSBK will start the new season refreshed and in many ways reinforced – partly due to this latest injection of talent from the MotoGP paddock.
There will be a record 13 regular manufacturers inside the overall paddock, and six in the top class again.
In WorldSSP there will be another new Chinese manufacturer, ZXMoto, to go alongside the existing QJ Motor concern. Their Chinese compatriots at Kove will stay in the all-new smallest class, with the 450RR now replacing their WorldSSP300 championship-winning 321 RR-S machine.
Prodigal powerhouses Suzuki will field three GSX-8Rs and Aprilia four RS 660 Factory entries in World Sportbike. Triumph will also be a new competitor in the new-look smallest class, with four Daytona 660s in all. One of those Triumph teams will be entered by no-less a TT racing legend than Peter Hickman, via his PHR Performance Team.
Yamaha will run a whopping 12 R7s and Kawasaki eight ZX-6R 636s, the latter detuned considerably from their WorldSSP spec.
In all there will be 22 regular WorldSBK category competitors (so far MIE Honda is not a confirmed entrant, for lots of reasons) and there will be 33 runners each in the WSSP and WorldSB classes.
Those are very tidy numbers, and there will be a record of 13 competing manufacturers ranged out across the whole paddock.
Wildcards at Phillip Island, maybe? Glad you asked, as the plan from the still-quite-new Superbike Advocates Ducati team is to wildcard at there with an Aussie rider, before they embark on a full BSB campaign with recent BSB champion Tommy Bridewell.
