The WorldSBK championship was shaken up last season with a history-making win by Toprak Razgatlioglu and BMW. This means the Phillip Island opener has huge significance as rivals scramble to regain lost ground, with 23 regular riders and six manufacturers – Bimota, BMW, Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki and Yamaha – looking to score big on the first weekend. Here is your full event guide for what will be an epic weekend…
How dominant was The Showman?
After the record-breaking domination of WorldSBK’s very own greatest showman Toprak Razgatlioglu last year, probably everyone outside the shadow of the big blue, black and white BMW logo is ready for a bit more top-of-the-table friction. Even though he missed two rounds and six races through injury, recollections of Toprak’s ‘complete domination’ have to be tempered with the knowledge that eight riders in total won races in 2024.
With an extra manufacturer – Bimota – having made a good start to its winter testing schedule, there are lots of proven and potential race winners ranged out across the various fiefdoms of the most prestigious production-derived kingdom of all. And maybe even more podium knights than last year’s 13.
Here’s Gordon Ritchie’s definitive form guide for 2025:
ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team
Toprak Razgatlioglu and Michael van der Mark are the only two WorldSBK riders on BMWs this year, which is a bit weird given that there is yet another uprated BMW base model M 1000 RR for 2025 and the ‘old’ one has just won the championship.
BMW thinks they only need Toprak and his good frien d ‘MVDM’. A logical outlook, given that their finally injury-free Dutchman won a race for them last year and has been a race winner five other times in his career. He finished an under-the-radar sixth overall in 2024, despite an unwanted tally of six no-scores. To put this into perspective, Michael van der Mark ended up ahead of every Yamaha rider. So ‘Mikey’ is no mouse.
Toprak? A championship win on the perennially fickle BMW in his first season aboard it was simply impossible for even the most seasoned observers to give pre-season credence to. Until Razgat made it a reality, it seemed impossible.
Because of this, no level of second-season achievement can be ruled out, even if there are lots of other high-powered threats lurking in the pits.
Aruba.it Racing – Ducati
Nicolo Bulega and recent double champion Alvaro Bautista finished in that order behind Razgatlioglu in 2024. This was not what even the most ardent Bulega supporter had envisioned. He was easily WorldSBK’s most potent Moto2 refugee to come up to the class as a proven WorldSSP champion. And there have been a complete handful of those guys in recent years.
We can expect even more from Nicolo in 2025, after he occasionally beat even Toprak in straight fights in his rookie year – no mean achievement.
It was no insult to Bulega that everybody, including probably Alvaro himself, thought that Bautista should be favourite for not just the Ducati number one slot but the championship title itself last year.
Lots of things held Alvaro’s challenge back, up to and including a variable combined bike and rider weight penalty at each round, lingering injury and the psychological shock-and awe of both Bulega and Toprak’s consistent winning pace throughout the season.
With a clean start after pre-season testing (two big European winter tests to go yet, in Jerez and Portimao), we may see Bautista challenge all the way, rather than finish 170 points behind Toprak. A truly motivated and fully fit Bautista could still undermine anyone else’s title foundations.
Bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team
Alex Lowes probably put in the season-long performance of his life last year, on a venerable Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10RR that even six-times champion Jonathan Rea had waved bye-bye to after some tough 2023 season results. Lowes, his 2024-spec bike and Rea’s old crew chief Pere Riba combined to take fourth in the championship, despite six no-scores.
The new Bimota project looks amazing in many ways and is unique in its addition of variable winglets to the KB998 – which can increase and decrease downforce via ECU commands.
The bike itself is a hybrid of Bimota’s tube/alloy subframe chassis philosophy and a (presumably) updated Ninja ZX-10RR engine package. So far, so fast… in testing – but racing is another thing. But this is no flighty Bimota dream project of old, as the Provec Racing squad is backed to the hilt by Kawasaki, which is a co-owner of Bimota.
Axel Bassani seems to have taken to the new KB998 much more readily than the Ninja ZX-10RR he rode last year. Which is good news all round for a rider who had taken six Ducati podiums as a privateer, before finding even a true factory Kawasaki a much tougher prospect.
Bimota is a more than welcome ‘new’ manufacturer on the grid.
Pata Maxus Yamaha
Some new tech stuff in the top Yamaha team but the 2024 line-up of Andrea Locatelli and Jonathan Rea remains the same. Even if they had to subsist on relatively meagre points portions last year.
Rea’s 2024 crew chief Andrew Pitt has been replaced by his chief mechanic Oriol ‘Uri’ Pallares, so we will see how that – and a slightly changed Yamaha R1 – suits ‘JR’ in 2025. It needs to because 13th overall was a disaster compared to any of his previous WorldSBK campaigns.
It was nearly as bad for ‘Loka’ last year, but he still has the motivation of that elusive first WorldSBK race win to shoot for. It may be harder than ever to achieve in 2025, however, with all those fast Ducatis and so many rival factory bikes on the grid. Predictions for 2025? Not for this pairing.
Honda HRC
Same line-up, same base bike, same in lots of ways. There have been reshuffles and new crew members inside the full-on WorldSBK effort that has so far delivered results which are seldom full-on. No harm at all to hard-charger Iker Lecuona, or the visually more measured Xavi Vierge, as they have found a tricky package under them every year since they joined WorldSBK straight from the MotoGP paddock. Despite making that allowance, it is difficult to think that this year looks easier than any previous one. Almost every neutral in the paddock (and several rival teams, to be fair) want to see HRC make a breakthrough in 2025 – simply as a reward for the faith they still show in the WorldSBK championship.
Kawasaki WorldSBK Team
Contrary to the mid-season baying of some commentators, Kawasaki has not left WorldSBK, as a factory team or otherwise. Bear with me here. This is the remaining 1000cc factory entry for Kawasaki, run by the long-time official WorldSSP Kawasaki squad, fronted by Kawasaki Puccetti Racing, but with the previous WorldSBK Puccetti privateers now renamed to match their 2025 WorldSBK factory status as the ‘Kawasaki WorldSBK Team’. BMW Bonovo refugee Garrett Gerloff has been podium capable in some previous WorldSBK seasons, but is not quite a race winner yet. No miracles can be expected in his first Kawasaki season.
GYTR GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Team
Not quite factory riders Dominique Aegerter and Remy Gardner are still on the same kit as the top team but in 2025 that may still see both start the season behind most others in terms of pure bike performance and – maybe more worryingly – consistency. Gardner, a Moto2 champion of course, took his first WorldSBK podium last year, in a similarly competitive landscape. In the right circumstances, who knows what 2025 could bring?
Barni Spark Racing Team Ducati
Reigning Independent Riders’ champion Danilo Petrucci enters 2025 with not just three WorldSBK race wins entered into his wide-spectrum racing ledger but a teammate in the shape of genuine 2024 WorldSSP championship contender Yari Montella. Petrucci busted on-track caps into many a full-factory rider through 2024 and there is no reason why an injury-free campaign this time around cannot see him finish inside the top five yet again. Montella? He has speed, a no-fear attitude and a good
V4 R, thanks to basically the same WorldSSP squad he won seven races with in 2024.
Team Pata Go Eleven Ducati
Andrea Iannone came back from a long ban to take podiums and a first WorldSBK race win, even against Razgatlioglu, in his rookie WorldSBK season. For a rider who would really rather be back in MotoGP he has even more opportunities in 2025 as he has much more of an idea how to really do this whole WorldSBK thing. The best of Iannone will always be something worth bearing witness to.
Sam Lowes (ELF Marc VDS Racing Team Ducati)
A truly disappointing rookie WorldSBK season for the former WorldSSP champion and 10-times Moto2 race winner saw him finish only 18th overall. Lowes has to be better than that in 2025, for the sake of all in his team and himself. A new crew chief, some other backroom changes and simply more experience means he should have a much better time of it.
Scott Redding (MGM BONOVO Racing Ducati)
Now here is a sharp new stimulus to the adrenal gland. Straight talker and 12-times (Ducati factory team) WorldSBK race winner Scott Redding, with a re-motivated ex-BMW satellite team, on probably the best package that privateer money can buy… This could be earthbound podium rocketry, or slump into a season-long fizzle – and I have no clue which it will be at this stage of the launch sequence. Either way, occasional fireworks seem all but guaranteed.
MotoCorsa Racing Ducati
Ryan Vickers is a serial BSB race winner and enters WorldSBK on a podium-ready bike in his rookie year. That could not be said for his two most recent BSB championship predecessors in WorldSBK, Tarran Mackenzie and Bradley Ray.
Yamaha Motoxracing WorldSBK Team
Super-experienced Tito Rabat and WorldSBK rookie Bahattin Sofuoglu make up a potentially exciting expansion of the Italian-based Yamaha privateers. Sofuoglu has his cousin Kenan as a powerful mentor – and fellow Turk Toprak Razgatlioglu as strong role model.
PETRONAS MIE Honda Racing Team
Tarran ‘Taz’ Mackenzie is back, alongside surprise late new entry Zaqhwan Zaidi, from Malaysia. Both riders are hoping for more consistency at a higher performance level than last year’s package allowed.
