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The mood of Dixon’s replacement, Ryan Vickers (Honda), got worse every day

With three crashes at the 2026 Superbike World Championship in Misano, Ryan Vickers features prominently in the statistics. The Honda rider’s mood shifted from euphoric to disillusioned.

Superbike WC

20.06.2026 - 17:04

This article is an automatically generated English version. The original article was published in German.

Ryan Vickers stürzte in Misano dreimal
© Gold & Goose

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Topic of the week

From major doubts to a major spectacle: why GP fans have reason to be delighted

Before the start of the season, critical voices dominated, but the World Championship rounds so far have shown that the rule changes are delivering exactly what was hoped for: excitement right up to the final lap.

Following Phillip Island, Ryan Vickers made his second appearance in the 2026 Superbike World Championship at the Misano World Circuit, standing in for Jake Dixon. HRC test rider Jonathan Rea stepped in at Portimão and Assen, whilst Japanese rider Yuki Kunii did so at the Balaton Circuit and in Most. The Englishman’s comeback at Aragon had come too soon, which is why Vickers was selected from the BSB for the seventh round of the season. The 27-year-old is part of the test programme and was already familiar with the Italian circuit from last year.

Vickers was thrilled by the opportunities offered by the works team. The staff, technology and infrastructure are, of course, of a higher standard than in the national series. It was astonishing that, on the first day, he was only 0.6 seconds off regular rider Somkiat Chantra. “It’s fantastic to be part of the HRC team and to work with such professional people. It’s a great environment, and it’s impressive to see how hard everyone works,” said Vickers. “Getting back on a Superbike was quite an adjustment – the feel of the bike is very different from what I’m used to. In the first session, the main focus was on doing laps and getting used to the bike and the track again. After making a few changes to the set-up, we were able to improve again in FP2, and I felt more comfortable on the bike.”

From Saturday onwards, however, things went pear-shaped. The trouble began with a crash in the third free practice session – through no fault of my own – which affected my Superpole (finishing last) and the first race (crash). “That was a difficult day,” groaned the Englishman. “We had a good plan for the third free practice session, and I was actually quite confident about the changes we’d made, but unfortunately I was knocked off the track by another rider right at the start of the session. It was quite a heavy crash with a hard impact, in which I bruised my left hand. As I’d missed most of the practice session, we lost valuable time on the track and went into qualifying with a few question marks, particularly regarding the qualifying tyres, which I hadn’t used yet this season. Starting the race from a lower grid position than I’d hoped made the race difficult, and then, unfortunately, I crashed in the early stages. Although I was able to get back into the race and complete a few more laps, I ultimately had to retire.”

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