He took 11th in race one, sixth
in the Superpole race and 10th
in race two.
"I feel like we made a big step
with the bike in general," Gerloff
said. "I was feeling good riding
it and in a good position for race
two. I tried my best in the rain
and felt good initially. Then as
the pace dropped, and every
-
body started going faster and
faster,
I started having more and
more 'moments' on the bike.
I tried to keep up but was not
able to. We got a top 10 finish,
so we will take it for now. I am
really looking forward to the
next round in Portimao."
In the points, Bulega has a
perfect 62, Bassani 42 and Mon
-
tella 26. And just to labor the
V4
point to its nth degree, six of
the top seven bikes in the points
table are Ducatis.
The next round in Portimao is
scheduled for March 27-29. An
all-European campaign will follow.
WorldSSP
After a strong showing in the
pre-race tests, Jaume Masia
(Orelac Racing VerdNatura
Ducati) was in a strong position
pre-Superpole, then he started
from pole for race one and went
on to win race one—by over five
seconds—from Philipp Oettl's
Feel Ducati.
An absolute bunfight for
third included the amazingly
potent new Chinese machine
from ZXMoto (ridden by Val
-
entin Debise) until he fell while
battling for
a podium. ZXMoto
makes it eight WorldSSP manu-
facturers now, in 2026.
Debise
took the ZXMoto to
third in Superpole and qualified
on the front row for the brand's
first-ever WorldSSP race. As-
tounding, and nothing less.
The really big race-one
news,
even for those outside Australia,
was that Oli Bayliss took his first
WorldSSP podium in third place,
heading off ex-GP new boy
Albert Arenas (AS bLU cRU Rac
-
ing Yamaha) and many people's
preseason favorite
for the title,
Can Oncu.
ROUND 1 / FEBRUARY 20-22, 2026
PHILLIP ISLAND / VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA
ROAD RACE I FIM SUPERBIKE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
P82
Danilo Petrucci (9)
dives for the inside at
turn four in race one,
his first in BMW colors.
