Red-hot Kyle Ryde: there’s a cannibal in British Superbike, but here everyone has fun

In World Superbike, Nicolò Bulega always wins: 27 times in the last 28 races, including the four final races of the '25 championship. The spectacle has evaporated, and it's not the rider’s fault, but the format’s. In British Superbike there’s a Cannibal too—his name is Kyle Ryde. And yet the championship there is vibrant and everyone is having fun. Even the rivals...

Ryde, 29, has already won the title twice (2024–25) and this year he’s dominating again: 12 wins in 18 races. The 2026-spec Ducati Panigale V4 R with the double-sided swingarm makes the difference in British Superbike as well, but thanks to a well-judged technical rulebook, it doesn’t crush the competition. At Oulton Park, where the sixth of the eleven scheduled rounds was held, Kyle Ryde christened both Sunday races, but Yamaha with Bradley Ray won the Saturday curtain-raiser. The YZF-R1 has taken two wins in the last three rounds and at Oulton Park, with the same Bradley Ray, it was always on the podium: first, second, and third, after knife-edge duels with Ducati riders Kyle Ryde and Scott Redding.

So Yamaha is holding its own in BSB, while in WorldSBK Andrea Locatelli is in deep crisis and Xavi Vierge has yet to find consistency: on almost every circuit the two Iwata factory riders have suffered massive gaps, even over 20 seconds. But other manufacturers are livening things up too, particularly Bimota. With the unleashed Max Cook, just 22, the KB998 at Oulton Park grabbed Superpole and led Race 1 for almost half the distance. Then, after dropping a few positions, Cook went out at high speed. On Sunday, however, he was back in the spotlight, finishing sixth.

Even Honda is bagging some satisfaction in BSB: in Race 3 Ryan Vickers finished just off the podium after a very tricky start. The gaps are tiny, overtakes and elbow-to-elbow action keep the crowd entertained—and they respond in force. Once again the grandstands were packed, following the 75,000 attendance at Brands Hatch two weeks earlier. In BSB there’s a technical rulebook that manages to limit the gulf between the Ducati missile and the others. The single ECU is the key element, the very same component that cannot be adopted in WorldSBK due to BMW’s veto within the manufacturers’ association (MSMA). But it’s not just a matter of rules. BSB has a clear identity and market positioning—elements the World Championship, unfortunately, has long since lost.

The points system also helps keep the show alive. Despite winning two-thirds of the races, Ryde leads with 304 points, against Redding’s 274 and Ray’s 215. So it’s still wide open, especially considering the Showdown format: it’s a given that everything will be decided in the final round at Brands Hatch in mid-October. Ryde remains the favorite but doesn’t yet have his hands on a third consecutive BSB title. In 2011, at just 14, Kyle became the youngest-ever British 125 GP champion. In 2016 he appeared in World Supersport, and the following year he had the opportunity to race with Manuel Puccetti’s Kawasaki team alongside the King of the class, Kenan Sofuoglu. In Australia he debuted with a fantastic fourth place, but it was the only spark in a disappointing season. At the end of the year Puccetti cut ties, an understandable decision given he already had a talent like Toprak Razgatlioglu waiting in the wings.

Kyle Ryde then returned home and started winning in BSB as early as 2020, with Suzuki. Now, with Ducati, he makes the difference. But his talent doesn’t kill BSB—if anything, it elevates it.

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