Andrea Locatelli
Alex Lowes
Lorenzo Baldassarri
but injury prone, who had given everything he could to the underperforming Honda for the last few years but come away with little to show for his efforts. Now he’ s on a bike that perhaps is more worthy of his talents, it’ ll be interesting to see what he can give us.
PATA YAMAHA Lecuona’ s ex-teammate at Honda, Xavi Vierge, another man whose talent was perhaps not clear until later in the 2025 season when the Honda seemed to be giving something back to the riders, steps away from HRC and into the seat vacated by Rea at PATA Yamaha, joining Locatelli who remains for another year with the team. But the R1 seems to be struggling for pace compared to the opposition and whilst Locatelli is a fine rider, it feels like perhaps he’ s reached the limits of what he can get out the bike.
GOELEVEN The mercurial talent of Andrea‘ The Maniac’ Ianonne seems lost to the WorldSBK paddock, replaced at GoEleven by Lorenzo Baldassarri who has previous WorldSBK experience, although his fruitless 2023 campaign with GMT94 Yamaha was one he’ d likely prefer to forget and which wasn’ t really a reflection of how good a rider he is. Ianonne did have hopes of fielding his own team in WorldSBK in 2026 but that proposal seems to have faded away completely.
BIMOTA, KAWASAKI, GYTR GRT YAMAHA Alex Lowes and Axel Bassani continue for another year on the Bimota and there were real flashes of form from both of them and the bike in 2025 so, if they’ re able to build on that coming into 2026, they could be players. Gerloff stays with the official Kawasaki
KIWI RIDER 41