Yari Montella, from Disaster to Rebirth: Barni's Gamble Paid Off

The Campania-born rider shone again during the Superbike weekend in Italy, with a pinch of luck in the final race: he didn’t forget to thank Barnabò for believing in him.

A triple podium for Yari Montella at the Misano Adriatico round, a great satisfaction for him and for the Barni Spark Racing Team. With these results, he has reclaimed third place in the overall standings and can look to the rest of the 2026 SBK championship with even more confidence.

In Race 2 he was helped by the crash of Axel Bassani, who was third with five laps to go and went down at Turn 8. Without the Bimota rider’s mistake, getting onto the podium would have been difficult. The 26-year-old from Campania made no errors and bagged another 16 heavy points.

At the end of the day Montella could only be satisfied, and he explained what it was like to be behind Bassani and then capitalize on his fellow Italian’s fall: "It couldn’t have gone better; more than this wasn’t possible. There was also a bit of luck and strategy. I could see that when I got closer to Axel the tire temperatures went up and I couldn’t attack. I ran an elastic race behind him; at a certain point I saw I didn’t have it and I was mentally ready to settle for fourth, but rather than just hand him the podium I decided to stay at a distance that would still force him to push. I don’t know if this strategy worked or if it was luck."

The rider from Avellino tried to put a bit of pressure on Axel, and perhaps his strategy helped. In any case, for him the results of this Superbike weekend at Misano were unexpected: "I didn’t expect it to go this well. Getting on the podium here was a dream, and making it come true is great."

Yari sits third in the overall standings and would like to keep that position until the end of the championship, but he prefers not to think too far ahead: "The goal is right there, but we’ll take it race by race. Here we wanted to do well after the weekend in Aragon and we did it; now we aim to confirm ourselves at Donington. I’d like to get closer to the top two."

Being on the podium three times in the Emilia Romagna round is inevitably something special, especially considering how complicated the 2025 season was, his first in SBK: "It’s a sort of payback," Montella admits, "after last year, after the messes I made that were my fault. I thank Barni for never stopping believing in me and for confirming me again. I owe a lot to him and to the family. In other circumstances, today I’d be in another championship or watching the race from home. I’m super grateful."

The Barni Spark Racing Team rider knew he had to improve for 2026 and worked the right way to put himself in a position to be competitive, making the most of the work the team is doing for him: "I’m someone who always questions himself and doesn’t blame bad luck or third parties. In 2025 there were mistakes caused by my own responsibilities. Last winter I worked on myself to try to get back to being as competitive as I was in Supersport and the Moto2 European Championship. I thank Barni and the whole team for believing in me, even when I doubted myself. This weekend is also for them."

Marco Barnabò told us in an interview (read it HERE) that this would be a year in which he couldn’t afford to make mistakes. And Yari isn’t putting a foot wrong. Sure, a few errors have happened anyway, but overall his 2026 season has been absolutely positive so far. He’s earning a contract extension for 2027; it’s unlikely we’ll see him with a different team than Barni Spark. Even though he would certainly like to be considered to replace Bulega later on in the Aruba Ducati team, it seems other names are the main candidates to take over from the future Pertamina Enduro VR46 MotoGP rider.

Being third in the standings, you can’t say he wouldn’t deserve consideration from the factory squad, but now he has to stay focused on the present and do his best with the Barni Spark team. Donington Park (round July 10–12) is another historic track and will be another great testing ground for him, now completely reborn compared to 2025 and determined to keep proving he’s one of the best riders on the grid.