Kawasaki has realised: offer its own World Championship places – or the talent will be gone

Eight riders are competing in the 2026 Sportbike World Championship on a Kawasaki ZX-6R 636; David Salvador leads the overall standings ahead of the penultimate round in Cremona next weekend with a comfortable 30-point lead over his team-mate Xavier Artigas. World Championship third-place rider Antonio Torres also rides a Kawasaki. This is also reflected in the Constructors’ Championship, where Kawasaki, on 257 points, lies well ahead of Triumph (183) and Suzuki (147).

Alongside Yamaha, Kawasaki has the best infrastructure in the SBK paddock for bringing riders up through the Sportbike and Supersport classes into the World Superbike Championship. The basic structure is in place, but it is set to be improved by 2028. After all, it is of no use if more strong riders push their way up from the Sportbike class than can then be accommodated.

At present, we see only two riders on Kawasakis in the Supersport World Championship, and just one in Superbikes. This will remain the case in 2027. A second green-liveried Supersport World Championship team is set to join the line-up in 2028. As things stand, the MTM and Deza-Box 77 teams are in the running, and discussions are underway with Kawasaki Europe’s racing division.

Kawasaki team principal Manuel Puccetti has also been campaigning for some time for the Superbike line-up to be doubled from one to two riders, although this would cost an additional one million euros.

That would make sense: eight riders in the sportsbike category, four in Supersport and two in Superbike. This would create a balanced pyramid structure and show the club’s own young talents a path to the top.

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“I used to do this with my team for Kawasaki: for six years, I helped Toprak Razgatlioglu progress, as well as Randy Krummenacher and Lucas Mahias from the Supersport to the Superbike World Championship,” Puccetti explained in an interview with SPEEDWEEK.com. “Kawasaki has realised that this is the right way forward. Also for budgetary reasons: when someone in your family comes through the ranks, that’s an investment. If, on the other hand, you have to buy a top rider from another manufacturer, that costs a lot of money. The Kawasaki president wants the riders to be with us out of conviction, not just for the money.”

For years, Kawasaki set the standard in the World Superbike Championship; between 2013 and 2020, the team won a total of seven riders’ titles across eight years with Tom Sykes (1) and Jonathan Rea (6). In the Supersport class, the ‘Greens’ were also strong, most recently winning the championship in 2012, 2015 and 2016 with Kenan Sofuoglu.

In recent years, however, there have been hardly any outstanding results, which is why Kawasaki has now changed its strategy, as Puccetti noted. “The president of Kawasaki Japan was at Misano and emphasised that we must nurture talent within the Kawasaki family. He doesn’t like the idea of us having to poach top riders from other teams; he wants us to develop our own young riders. After all, these are riders who believe in Kawasaki and will grow up with us.”