All the main Japanese manufacturers, and most recently the Italian Ducati marque, have won the WorldSSP title for themselves along the way. Kawasaki has earned the Manufacturers’ title three times in all.
In the Riders’ Championship Kawasaki competitors have scored top spot - in 2001 with Andrew Pitt before Kenan Sofuoglu won the title for Kawasaki in 2012, 2015 and most recently in 2016.
The first Kawasaki race win in the full FIM WorldSSP championship was the first race of the 1999 season itself, with British rider Iain Macpherson scoring full points at Kyalami in South Africa. Andrew Pitt, Fabien Foret, Joan Lascorz, Broc Parkes, Randy Krummenacher, Lucas Mahias, privateer Rafaelle de Rosa and most recently Yari Montella and Can Öncü have also posted race wins on the middleweight Ninja.
Kawasaki has now scored 47 individual race wins since 1999. The most recent victories came thanks to teenage sensation Öncü, who will continue as the focus of the Kawasaki Puccetti Racing team’s attentions in 2024.
A wide array of engine capacities and formats are now allowed in WorldSSP but all must remain largely as standard, with engine tuning, peak revs and other performance parameters tightly regulated and constantly reviewed.
A well-proven winning package in WorldSSP the Ninja ZX-6R has now given way to the Ninja ZX-6R 636, which has already scored podium performances in the 2025 championship.
The Kawasaki entry in WorldSSP for 2026 will comprise two riders, Jeremy Alcoba and two-time WorldSSP champion, Dominique Aegerter.
There will be two WorldSSP races at each and every one of the 12 rounds that make up the full WorldSBK season.
WorldSPB
FIM Sportbike World Championship
For the 2026 season, a new era begins for Kawasaki as the FIM Sportbike World Championship comes to life inside the WorldSBK paddock for the first time. After Kawasaki’s unprecedented success in the FIM World Supersport 300 Championship over the previous nine seasons, the new class will also feature several strong entries, all running Kawasaki’s Ninja ZX-6R 636 four-cylinder machine.
The ‘636’ is also competing in the WorldSSP Championship - and for the second year after its podium-capable debut in 2025 - but the World Sportbike specification Kawasaki will feature some differences to allow it to compete in the new class.
With a wide variety of competing machines already entered, running engine displacements from 450cc to 800cc, there will be three main forms of balancing rules: Engine Concession Parts, Torque Map Limits with rev limitations, and minimum weight restrictions. These will include a hard minimum weight for the ZX-6R 636 of 175kg. The overall aim is to have each eligible machine produce around 90 horsepower.
Some very well-known and successful Kawasaki WorldSSP300 teams already have their ambitions fully focused on the new Sportbike championship, including MTM Kawasaki, Prodina, Deza-Box 77 Racing, and the Pons Motorsport Italika Racing teams.
In all, six manufacturers have already pledged teams to the new World Sportbike Championship, with two more having taken part in the homologation process.
World SPB will be present at eight of the scheduled 12 overall WorldSBK rounds, all within the European theatre.