How a Moto3 veteran helped a Chinese brand win its first motorcycle world title

Grand Prix veteran Efren Vazquez has been retired from full-time racing for almost a decade, but he nonetheless had a part to play in this year’s WorldSSP300 championship.

The 2025 World Supersport 300 Championship was won by 17-year-old Kove-mounted Benat Fernandez. It marked a first title for Kove, and therefore for China (yes, David Alonso won the 2024 Moto3 title on what was called a CFMoto, but it was essentially a re-branded KTM, whereas the Kove 321RR was designed and built by Kove itself), as well as for the young Spaniard, who is linked to the aforementioned two-time Moto3 grand prix winner Vazquez by location of birth, with both hailing from the Basque region.

Vazquez was in Fernandez’s corner during 2025, playing what the Spanish youngster called a “super-important” part in winning what was the final WorldSSP300 title.

“He [Vazquez] showed to me the discipline, the effort, to be calm, have a routine,” Benat Fernandez told WorldSBK.com at EICMA.

“I think this is the key of the success. 

“I think this is the most important thing in racing: don’t distract and go in another way. So, it was super-important.”

Fernandez’s speed was something of a surprise to him in 2025, which was his rookie season in the 300 championship. Nonetheless, it was evident from the start, taking pole position and winning Race 2 at the opening round in Portimao.

“My goal was to give my 100 per cent at all the races and I could not imagine that I could arrive to the first race and win,” he said.

“At the end, it was a good season, the bike felt very good from the beginning of the year, so I pushed hard and I achieved what I achieved, but I could not imagine that in my first race I already got a victory.”

“The combination was probably not one to win a World Championship”

The Team 109 squad Fernandez joined for 2025 was in its first season as a Kove team, having run Kawasaki machinery in previous years.

The team was able to take on the factory 321RR bikes from the year before, but with only limited factory support during the season.

A one-rider effort, Fernandez was the team’s sole focus all season, but for team boss Paul Tobin the combination of team, rider, and bike was not necessarily one you might look at from the outside as one that seemed likely of winning a championship at the start of the season.

“It was an absolutely incredible year,” said Tobin, speaking to WorldSBK.com at EICMA.

“From the start of the year when we took the Kove bike, and also Benat [Fernandez], we have a team where it’s an Irish team with a young Basque rider, and a Chinese manufacturer. 

“The combination was probably not, for people outside, [one] to win a World Championship.

“But from the first round, when Benat did his first session, gets the Superpole, we knew already he was fast, and then wins the second race in Portimao and builds the momentum, and the momentum carried through the year, it was incredible. 

“[To take the championship in] the last race of the World Supersport 300 Championship, it was like a dream for us, but also speaking to other people who watch the sport they said to me that this was the most incredible end to a championship they’ve seen. 

“It’s down to Benat’s race craft and his ability to do what he did in the final corner of Jerez.”