Kawasaki star emerges as major podium threat at Czech WorldSBK

Garrett Gerloff admits his fourth place finish in Race 1 of the Czech WorldSBK was helped massively by red flags on the opening lap, after the American initially dropped to 14th off the start.

Gerloff was caught rolling forwards just before the lights went out when the race got underway at the first attempt. However, red flags quickly came out when Danilo Petrucci suffered a big fall at turn 13. That meant that riders would restart from their original grid places. 

“They held the light for a decent amount of time,” Gerloff told WorldSBK.com. “I slipped the clutch and held the brake at the same time, and I just thought that the light was about to go off. 

“I let the clutch out but I didn’t let the brake out, and so I smashed the bike into the [starting] box. 

“Then, the light didn’t go off so I went to pull the clutch back in, but then the light went off and everybody came around me. 

“I wasn’t nervous, I was just ready to go. The red flag did end up really helping us and we were able to do that restart. The second start was really good.”

When the race restarted, Gerloff managed to keep hold of his sixth place before moving up to fifth when Sam Lowes and Alberto Surra collided on lap four. 

The Kawasaki rider immediately took advantage as he dived to the inside of Surra for P4 at turn 20, on the same lap. 

Although Gerloff was unable to hunt down Yari Montella for the final spot on the podium, he kept the Barni rider in his sights for the entire race.

When told about the gap being less than three seconds to the podium, which has been dominated by Ducatis throughout 2026, Gerloff said: “That’s good. I’m always looking at distances from the winner but that was still far in this race. 

“At least it seems like we’re getting closer to where we want to be. I’m really hoping that we’ve found a spot where we want to be with the setup and that we can just keep taking that from race-to-race.”