team, the outfit now run by Manuel Puccetti, Remi Gardner stays with GYTR GRT Yamaha and is joined by Stefano Manzi, fresh from taking out the 2025 World Supersport title. Sam Lowes, spectacular in Superpole but inconsistent in races, stays with the Marc VDS Ducati team for another year.
HRC HONDA With Lecuona and Vierge leaving Honda, it was all change there with the team lining up with Brit Jake Dixon and Thai racer Sumkiat Chantra but the start of the season went pear-shaped for HRC before it even started. Chantra broke both arms at Sepang in January and was replaced by Tetsuta Nagashima for Round One. He is expected to return for Round Two towards the end of March. Jake Dixon then suffered a serious hand injury in the testing prior to Round One which ruled him out of the event and the timeline for his return to track isn’ t clear at this point. HRC did have BSB man Ryan Vickers running as a wildcard on another HRC machine for this event but it really wasn’ t the start to the season they would have wanted. Alberto Surra, Tarran Mackenzie, Bahattin Sofuoglu and Matio Rato on independently run machines round out the competitor list for 2026.
TESTING Bulega was fast, very fast, heading second fastest Sam Lowes by 0.666sec. Based on combined times across the two days of testing, Baldassarri on the GoEleven Ducati was a real surprise, carding third fastest and suggesting that he was more of a force to be reckoned with than had been expected. Montella for Barni Spark and both Bassani and Lowes for Bimota were playing at the fast end of the timing sheets albeit a second or more adrift from Bulega. Oliveira was doing better than Petruccci on the BMW and Yamaha, Kawasaki and Honda were not making a real impression although to be fair both Vierge and Gerloff did crack the top ten. Gerloff’ s Kawasaki is fast, regularly cracking 320km / h on the long PI main straight.
Having completed testing on Tuesday, the teams had to wait until Friday and the first free practice sessions to see just how race-ready they were.
QUALIFYING Format of the race weekend was largely unchanged from previous years. After three free practice sessions spread across Friday and Saturday, a fifteen-minute qualifying on Saturday would set grid position for the first full length race of twenty-two laps, a race distance of a shade less than 100km, on the same day. Results from Saturday qualifying would also set grid position for the 10-lap Tissot Superpole sprint race on Sunday. The finishing order in the Tissot Superpole race can shuffle around grid positions for the second full length race, another twenty-two lapper on Sunday afternoon. If you finish in the top nine in Tissot Superpole, that’ ll be your grid position in the second full length race regardless of where you qualified on Saturday. So, the opportunity is there to convert a moderate result into a much better grid position for Race Two if you can work yourself into the top nine in the Tissot Superpole sprint race. Of course, it can go the other way too, so a good result in quali can be upset by a poor finish, or worse a DNF, in Tissot Superpole. Stuffing up qualifying can ruin the whole weekend in any form of racing but in WorldSBK, the consequences are bad as BMW debutante Miguel Oliveira found out. A crash on lap one of qualifying and subsequent tech problems with the bike resulted in him not laying down a time at all, automatically putting him in the last spot on the grid in Race One and Tissot Superpole. And then, as he was unable to get to that important ninth place in Tissot Superpole he was back in last spot on the grid for Race Two. That was a real shame as Oliviera had been looking strong in the lead up to the event but that qualifying mistake undercut his whole weekend. He performed well in the races but that crash ruined his chances of a decent points haul over the weekend.
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