“Something good, something not” for Axel Bassani at first 2026 WorldSBK test

Axel Bassani was back on board the Bimota KB998 for the first test of the 2026 WorldSBK season at Jerez aware that he and Bimota have “a lot of work to do” before the start of the season-proper in February.

Bassani was on par with teammate Alex Lowes early in the 2025 World Superbike season, the first for the KB998.

This marked an improvement over where he’d been compared to the British rider in 2024 aboard the Kawasaki ZX-10RR, and the Italian was the first rider to put the KB998 on the front row when he qualified third at Misano.

But since then it was Lowes who took the lead for the Italian brand, finishing on the podium four times, including a trio of third places at Magny-Cours.

As a result, Bassani is looking to find improvements for 2026, something he felt he had done to some extent at Jerez.

“It’s been quite a productive morning, we tried a lot of new items, on the rear shock, something new on the engine,” Axel Bassani told WorldSBK.com on the second day of the Jerez post-race test.

“It’s been good because we tried to understand which is the best way to take during this winter. 

“We have a lot of work to do, but it’s been good, I had fun, we worked really hard with the team. 

“I’m happy to finish in a good way, now we have to be focused for the winter and try to improve as much as possible.”

In general, Bassani’s opinion was split on the new parts he tried in Jerez, although it leaned more positive than negative.

“Something was good, something not,” he said. 

“But it’s normal. I had some benefits, sure; helped me on my riding style. We have a lot to improve.”

Straight line performance is something that Bimota clearly needs to improve, as has been noted by Alex Lowes and Guim Roda since the end of the 2025 season. Bassani joined them in this opinion, although with the project still quite fresh the Italian was optimistic about the chance to improve the KB998.

“We can improve a lot of things, especially the engine for the speed on the straight,” he said.

“We have to work a lot also on the aerodynamics, but also the suspension we improve a lot.

“We have a lot of things that we can improve because the bike has only one year of experience, so we have a lot of work to do.”