Superbike, Garrett Gerloff boosts Kawasaki: Ninja in the top five and updates on the way

Positive Sunday for the Kawasaki team at Balaton Park, Gerloff grabbed the best result of 2026: will there be continuity?

Kawasaki showed up at the start of the World Superbike Championship with a new Ninja ZX-10RR, and improvements are evident compared to 2025. The fact that there’s only one green bike on the grid makes development more complicated than for manufacturers who can count on at least two riders, but the team led by Manuel Puccetti is giving its all, and on Sunday at Balaton Park they were able to end the weekend with a smile.

Race 1 didn’t go very well, as Garrett Gerloff didn’t do better than thirteenth, but in the Superpole Race he finished eighth and in Race 2 fifth. It’s the first top 5 since the Texan rider started racing for the Akashi brand, a result that brings a lot of confidence for the future and redeems the disappointing Assen weekend (0 points scored). In the overall standings he has 40 points, 11 more than he had a year ago after the first four rounds of the SBK calendar.

Gerloff was eager to do well at the Hungarian round, to put Assen behind him and look ahead with more optimism: "After the horrible weekend at Assen, it was nice to have a positive one. There, whatever we tried to improve kept giving us the same lap times; for me and the team it was hard to explain. We arrived here, Friday wasn’t bad, Saturday was better, and Sunday was really good. Every change we made brought us closer to a better result. I’m happy I managed to bring the green bike back near the front. I’m satisfied with the bike, but we need to be more consistent with the setup and with my feeling on the bike to be closer to the top positions. It’s nice to be in the top 5."

The American rider hadn’t been in the top 5 since the 2024 Superbike round at Aragon, when he was still riding the Bonovo BMW M 1000 RR. He knows maintaining consistency won’t be easy, also because there are so many competitive Ducatis on track: "Last year was tough," he explains, "and the best I managed was sixth, at Donington. I struggled all year to find a good feeling with the bike. Over the winter break Kawasaki hired the crew chief I’d had at Yamaha and BMW. Les Pearson isn’t afraid to make big changes and try interesting things on the bike. In the first round in Australia I made the top 6, while at Portimão I made the top 7. This is much better than what we were achieving in 2025. Assen went badly, but at Balaton we made the top 5. After finishing sixth, seventh, and fifth, maybe at Most I’ll be fourth, who knows? The championship is very competitive, if you’re not riding a bike that starts with a D it can be tough."

Gerloff aims to stay in important positions in the upcoming Superbike rounds and is also counting on the updates Kawasaki will bring him along the way: "I wouldn’t want to stop at the top 5," he admits, "but I don’t want to think too far ahead. I finished fifth, but 24 seconds from the winner. The championship is tough, we need to keep working to be faster and more consistent. Kawasaki will bring me new parts during the year; I hope all the improvements to the electronics and the chassis will help us."

The 30-year-old American rider believes that the Autodrom Most, venue of the next SBK event, could also be a good place to achieve satisfying results: "Most is a track quite similar to Balaton. If the bike worked well here, I think it should do so in the Czech Republic as well. I want to be in the top 10 on Friday and improve from there."