Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki) tamed the rodeo bull: “Then it was perfect”

Garrett Gerloff is having a strong 2026 Superbike World Championship season – compared to his first season with Kawasaki and also taking into account this year’s extremely strong Ducati line-up with its nine riders. The 31-year-old is eighth in the World Championship standings after nine rounds and has secured 14 top-nine finishes. Gerloff achieved his best result with a fourth-place finish in the first race at Most.

The Kawasaki rider made a strong return to action at Magny-Cours following the almost two-month summer break. Ninth place on Friday was encouraging, even though his ZX-10RR wasn’t set up perfectly. “The first day at Magny-Cours was pretty good. I felt quite quick, even though I’m still having a few problems with the bike at the moment. We just need to look at the data and, above all, find out what’s going on with the electronics,” said Gerloff, expressing his frustration with the set-up.

Gerloff: His best qualifying lap was disallowed

Qualifying is a well-known weakness of Gerloff’s, although he did secure his only pole position at Magny-Cours in 2023. Last weekend, things didn’t go quite so well in Superpole. “Yellow flags were waved in the final corner and that time was disallowed. I clocked a 1:35.0, which would have meant fifth on the grid. That was only 0.1 seconds slower than the pole time from 2025 and I was delighted,” Gerloff explained in a one-on-one interview with SPEEDWEEK.com editor-in-chief Ivo Schützbach. “Well, my next lap only put me in twelfth on the grid. That was a real blow, because it was the first race weekend this year where I’d had the pace for a really fast lap – but my race pace wasn’t good enough and wasn’t consistent. We need to keep working on that. I felt good on fresh tyres, but then it just got worse and worse. Normally, it’s the other way round for me – cautious at the start and better later on.”

Willkommen zum Rennen in Magny-Cours

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Nicolò Bulega

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Axel Bassani

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Boxengasse

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Garrett Gerloff

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Fans

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Xavier Vierge

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Sam Lowes

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Iker Lecuona

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Álvaro Bautista

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Start des Rennens

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Lorenzo Baldassarri

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Axel Bassani

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Sam Lowes

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Nicolò Bulega

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Iker Lecuona

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Yari Montella

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Nicolò Bulega gewinnt beide Läufe in Frankreich

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Bulega und Lecuona

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Podium Lauf 1 - Iker Lecuona, Nicolò Bulega, Sam Lowes

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Podium Lauf 2 - Iker Lecuona, Nicolò Bulega, Yari Montella

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Sieger Nicolò Bulega

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Willkommen zum Rennen in Magny-Cours

© Gold & Goose

The Kawasaki works team hadn’t quite got to grips with the set-up issues by the time the first race got underway on Saturday afternoon, but Gerloff still managed a solid result, finishing ninth. “I had a fantastic start and was in sixth place after the first lap – I was thrilled,” said Gerloff. “Then the race was interrupted by the red flag. We tried to make a few changes to the bike, but after the restart I had major difficulties and kept falling further and further back. The Kawasaki is a great bike, but when you’re close to the limit and make the wrong change, it gets tricky.”

Even though 13th place doesn’t tell the whole story, Sunday’s Superpole Race marked the breakthrough – but seventh in the second main race! “For the sprint race, we made changes to the chassis and the electronics. It felt good, so we fine-tuned it a bit further for the second race and then it was perfect,” explained the American. “Before that, it felt like I was riding a rodeo bull; with the changes, I was able to ride my bike more consistently. I was also closer to Alex, who is my benchmark and was brilliant at Magny-Cours. We achieved two top-ten finishes in France, which isn’t bad.”