Kawasaki shake-up in the Supersport World Championship: Puccetti also signs Masia for 2027

2026 SSP season below expectations for the Akashi brand, there’s a strong desire for redemption next year: there will be two new riders in the team.

Kawasaki is not on the World Supersport grid just to take part; the goal is to consistently fight for podiums and wins. After signing Dominique Aegerter, the dominant champion of the class in 2021–2022, and confirming Jeremy Alcoba, who ended 2025 on an upward trend, Manuel Puccetti envisioned battling for major results in the 2026 season. It didn’t go according to plan, and for 2027 a complete overhaul of the line-up has been decided.

In mid-July, the signing of David Salvador, leader of the Sportbike World Championship with the ProDina Kawasaki XCI team, was announced. A near-natural promotion to World Supersport given the performance of the 23-year-old from Madrid, who has the chance to be crowned SPB world champion as early as this weekend at Cremona Circuit.

While Salvador can tackle a rookie 2027 without excessive pressure, it will be his teammate who carries the burden of delivering standout results. That rider is Jaume Masia, announced this morning by the Kawasaki WorldSSP team. After two years on the Ducati Panigale V2 with the Orelac VerdNatura team, scoring 5 wins and 11 total podiums, the Spaniard born in 2000 has decided to embrace the Kawasaki project and step onto the Ninja ZX-6R 636 in 2027. Third at the end of last season and currently fourth in the standings, 6 points behind third-placed Can Oncu, he looks like a great catch on paper.

Manuel Puccetti is thrilled about signing the 2023 Moto3 world champion and is confident he can deliver the required results: "We are certain he can be very competitive on our Ninja ZX-6R 636 and contest a high-level season. We are already organizing our winter testing program to allow Jaume to gain confidence with both his new bike and our team. Everyone in the team would like to thank our current riders, Jeremy Alcoba and Dominique Aegerter, and wish them a great end to the 2026 season and all the best for the future."

Before focusing on 2027, the Kawasaki WorldSSP team wants to close out a 2026 season in the best possible way, one in which the big surprise has been Aegerter’s shocking flop. He was supposed to be the team’s top rider, yet he never managed to be truly competitive. He finished only one race in the top 10 (sixth in Race 1 at Assen). Despite Puccetti and his crew doing everything to help him, the Swiss rider never felt comfortable with the Ninja and ended up falling well short of expectations. Thirty-eight points in nine rounds is far too meager a haul; eighteenth in the overall standings is striking, considering Aegerter is a two-time Supersport champion.

Alcoba has fared better, accumulating 138 points (eighth in the standings) and being a fairly consistent presence in the top 10. But he claimed only one podium and a total of four top-5s in the 2026 season; Puccetti expected more from the Spaniard in his second year with the ZX-6R 636. We’ll see if Masia and Salvador can spark a step forward for the Akashi manufacturer.

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