Bimota WorldSBK boss considers how to fix KB998’s biggest weakness in 2026

The Bimota KB998 took four podium finishes in its first WorldSBK season, proving to be a competitive package, especially in the hands of Alex Lowes, during 2025, but now the question over project turns from whether the bike can be competitive in general to how it can be developed from the top-six bike to one that can win races.

Ultimately, while the KB998 proved competitive in its debut World Superbike season, it was still held back by the part it shares with the ZX-10RR it has replaced: the engine.

Down on outright power compared to the fastest bikes – the Honda, Ducati, and BMW – the KB998 also struggled for straight line performance versus the ZX-10RR due to its more radical aerodynamic setup.

World Superbike being a production-based series, there is limited scope for improvement in the engine of the race bike if there are not changes made to that of the production bike. But recent changes to the WorldSBK rules, mostly the introduction of the Superconcession regulations in 2023, mean there is some flexibility in which Bimota could search for improvements in the absence of an overhauled engine from Kawasaki.

“This is a continuous fight with the rules,” said Bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team manager Guim Roda.

“In the end, we are quite tight with the mass production limitations and tight rules in the engine area. 

“We need to face this. We have to wait. 

“Either we make upgrades in the mass production bike, which takes a long time and is a big investment for a manufacturer, or we work with more flexible engine tuning to compensate differences against the others. 

“Right now, the tools we have are the Superconcession possibilities and concessions, so we need to work with that and try to take the next step.”

With the concession and Superconcession regulations for each manufacturer yet to be made official by WorldSBK, there was a degree of estimation taken into account during the post-season test in Jerez on 21–22 October, where Bimota was looking to work towards making the WorldSBK-spec KB998 “much better”.

“I cannot go into details about the things we tested,” Roda said, “but there’s always many areas to work with the base blocks which includes the engine side, electronics, suspension, chassis, setup.

“We tried to make a combination in all of these parameters according to the concession points we can get, and the Superconcessions that maybe we can take. 

“We need to work in advance to understand how we’ll be able to improve the bike inside the rules. 

“All the areas we have to improve small details to make the package much better and then, especially, reconfirm all these setup ideas that we cannot do during a race weekend. 

“This year, we got a lot of information that we can work on and try to make the next step this year.”