Alex Lowes concerned about Superbike: "We're approaching a dangerous point"

The Bimota rider also voices the need to make changes in WorldSBK to put a brake on Ducati’s dominance.

The 2026 Superbike World Championship isn’t delivering much excitement, that’s clear to everyone. Ducati has built a new Panigale V4 R that has proven far superior to the other bikes on the grid. Nicolò Bulega has won 23 out of 24 races, and his teammate Iker Lecuona has taken one. The other manufacturers have struggled even to fight for the podium; only Bimota and BMW have made it there.

Bimota is second in the manufacturers’ standings, but with a huge gap to Ducati: 496 points versus 220. Axel Bassani took two podiums at Phillip Island, finishing second twice. Alex Lowes also made the podium in Australia: third place in Race 2. After that, neither managed to repeat. Bassani was about to do it at Misano in the last race, but he surprisingly crashed when he was close to the target.

Generally speaking, it should also be noted that there are only two KB998 Rimini bikes on the SBK grid, so development of the Romagna machine proceeds differently, with less data available. The Panigale V4 R’s potential is greater, no doubt, but with nine Ducati riders on track, the task for the competition is quite complicated. Bimota has two bikes, BMW and Honda the same, Kawasaki one. The only one with six is Yamaha, but the R1 is a fairly dated model and seems to have reached its development limit some time ago.

Discussions are underway between the FIM, MotoGP Group (formerly Dorna), and the MSMA (manufacturers) to figure out how to make the races more interesting and spectacular. Inevitably, a change to the technical regulations will be needed to achieve greater balance on the Superbike grid.

Reaching an agreement isn’t easy; each manufacturer has its own demands. Alex Lowes knows well that Ducati wants to defend its status and its investment, while the competition aims to secure more favorable conditions to close the gap: "Pleasing everyone won’t be easy,” reports Speedweek. “I can understand the arguments on both sides, but I don’t have a ready-made solution. I can only congratulate the guys who are doing an excellent job. On the one hand, you have to take your hat off to them, but the situation is becoming progressively critical."

Even though the British rider is mainly focused on doing his best together with the Bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team, he sees a somewhat worrying scenario and clearly implies that something will need to be done to avoid a 2027 similar to 2026: “A manufacturer that sees no chance of being competitive keeps pouring in large sums of money. From this point of view, I think we’re approaching a dangerous point. Ducati is obviously happy, but no one else is. That’s the situation.”

Through Marco Zambenedetti, Ducati has already made it known that it doesn’t intend to hand out gifts to other manufacturers, while still being open to discussing some changes to the existing Superbike rules. It’s conceivable that, for the good of the championship, it could meet others halfway—but only up to a point. It’s also up to the rival factories to commit more to raise the level of their technical packages.

The 2026 Superbike World Championship will resume in early September at Magny-Cours. Before the race weekend (September 4–6), there could be news regarding the 2027 regulations, as well as the rider market.