Between glory and storms: the story of Team Bertocchi that kept the Kawasaki name alive in the World Superbike Championship

The Bertocchi Team wrote some significant pages in the history of the Superbike World Championship. The Italian squad kept the Kawasaki name alive during a transitional period, before the Japanese manufacturer’s official return.

The ending wasn’t the best, with controversies that ended up in the court news. The story of the Team Kawasaki Bertocchi is worth remembering nonetheless.

At the head of the team was Sergio Bertocchi, owner and organizational mind of the operation. He wasn’t a famous rider, but an experienced manager and tuner, capable of turning a private team into a competitive project in the production‑derived world championship. His experience and technical knowledge were the backbone of the team, allowing Kawasaki to be present on the Superbike stage with resources often inferior to factory teams. Bertocchi was the link between riders, mechanics, and technology—the one who knew how to turn every race weekend into a laboratory of solutions and adaptations.

The team competed in the Superbike World Championship from 1991 to 2006. The early years were brilliant thanks to the excellent results achieved by Piergiorgio Bontempi, who climbed the podium several times.

In 2003, Mauro Sanchini got on the Kawasaki of the Bertocchi team, bringing a wave of enthusiasm and delivering notable performances. He stood out in several races, earning significant finishes in an era dominated by factory teams. The rider from the Marche region also took third place in the 2003 Italian Superbike Championship, then won it the following year on the same bike. In 2004, Sanchini was almost always in the top 10 and even scored two sixth places—excellent results given that those were the years of the Ducati 999.

In 2005, the Kawasaki Bertocchi team started the season with Giovanni Bussei and Ivan Clementi, who, however, switched teams after a few races. The team didn’t shine as it had the previous year but still collected some good finishes.

In 2006, the lead rider was Franco Battaini. He began the season on the Bertocchi Kawasaki with high hopes, but the bike wasn’t as competitive as he expected. The rider and team then decided to end their collaboration mid‑season, shortly before the Silverstone round, to seek new pathways.

The colorful twist that year was the arrival of Joshua Brookes, an Australian champion with a career rich in domestic successes, who took Battaini’s place for the rest of the championship. Brookes arrived with enthusiasm, jumped on the Kawasaki ZX‑10R, and worked with the team to extract the maximum from a bike that did not always match the potential of the riders on the grid. At the end of that year came the Team Alto Evolution affair with very serious allegations. In 2011, however, Bertocchi was acquitted, as the court found the facts did not stand.