Axel Bassani (Bimota) criticises the long SBK break: “It’s too much of a holiday”

Since the race at Donington Park on 12 July, the 2026 Superbike World Championship has been on its summer break. When the production-based world championship resumes in early September, the riders will have spent seven weeks without a race weekend. After that, however, four rounds will take place within six weeks at Magny-Cours, Cremona, Estoril and Jerez.

One thing is clear: just as for any competitive athlete, such a long break is extremely unfortunate for racing drivers too. Maintaining fitness, muscle tone, instincts and reflexes at the highest level is difficult outside of competition. At least the Italian was able to celebrate his 27th birthday in style on 24 July. “Holidays are lovely, but seven weeks is really a long time,” Bimota works rider Axel Bassani told GPOne. “I’m feeling good on the bike at the moment and we were heading in the right direction in the final laps – I would have liked to carry on. A break this long is almost too much.”

The Italian is sixth in the World Championship after eight rounds. Most recently, Bassani showed an upward trend with a series of top-five finishes. “We’ve been in the fight for podium places several times and have even managed it on a few occasions. The problem is that the gap to the Ducatis is still considerable at the moment. We’re always in the race, giving it our all and ready to seize every opportunity. But there’s still a long way to go before we can be in contention for a podium place every weekend.”

Normally, the summer break is punctuated by the odd test, but with the limit set at just ten days, even that isn’t feasible for every team and rider. “At the moment, I’m not aware of any tests,” the Italian lamented.

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