Superbike: A disappointing 2026 for Andrea Locatelli—will Yamaha respond in 2027?

A bad season for Loka and Yamaha, never able to fight for the very top positions: a dramatic collapse in results. Will there be a comeback next year?

One of the biggest disappointments of the 2026 Superbike World Championship is undoubtedly Yamaha. Despite the work done to try to improve on last year’s results, the situation has actually gotten drastically worse: just one top 5 and zero podiums for the R1. In the manufacturers’ standings, the Iwata brand is fourth with 131 points after eight rounds; in 2025 they had 238 (third place overall) after the same number of races.

A major decline due to multiple factors. Certainly, Yamaha hasn’t managed to work well enough to put itself in a position to be more competitive. On the other hand, it must be said that Ducati, with the new Panigale V4 R, is dominating, allowing the factory riders to always be in the top two positions and the independent team riders to often be on the third step of the podium or at least in great positions. Bimota has improved (from 139 to 220 points), as has Kawasaki (from 67 to 110); while BMW has suffered a collapse (from 409 to 136 points) due to the departure of Toprak Razgatlioglu.

In 2026 Andrea Locatelli is again Yamaha’s best rider, but his potential has diminished quite a bit compared to last SBK season. So far he has taken just one top-5 finish, fifth place in the wet Race 2 held at the opening round at Phillip Island. His second-best result is sixth in Race 1 at Assen. In the overall riders’ standings he is eleventh with 99 points.

In 2025, after the same number of rounds, he was fourth on 218 with fifteen top-5 finishes, including one win (Race 2 at Assen) and three other podiums. This year it’s a completely different story. Unfortunately, he can’t aim for the results of the recent past; for him and Yamaha, 2026 is rather anonymous and disappointing.

In the latest round at Donington Park, the Italian rider failed to crack the top 10 in any of the weekend’s three races. Nicolò Canepa, Yamaha Motor Europe Road Racing Sporting Manager, commented as follows: "For Andrea Locatelli it was a rather difficult weekend. He wasn’t able to find the feeling from the start and we didn’t manage to improve the package between Friday and Saturday, which made things complicated in the race. We need to be able to provide him with a better package at the next round, because we know his potential and his talent."

The 2026 Superbike World Championship will resume on the weekend of September 4–6 at Magny-Cours (France), and Yamaha will have to work hard during the break to be ready. Clearly, no one can expect a radical turnaround in performance, but the riders do expect to be a bit more competitive in the final four events on the calendar.

And they expect to be much more competitive in 2027, a year in which they hope to see a major reaction from the Iwata manufacturer. While waiting to understand the impact of the new sole tire supplier (Michelin), Locatelli and his brand mates hope to have more performant R1s at their disposal.

Yamaha is also working to obtain some changes to the technical regulations in order to close the gap to Ducati and achieve a more balanced SBK grid. Reaching an agreement among manufacturers is never easy; discussions are ongoing and it’s unclear what the outcome will be. The Iwata company wants to avoid another disappointing championship like 2026. The ideal would be to bring a new R1 to the track, given that the current model is a bit dated and doesn’t seem to have great development margins.