Welcoming the bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team at 2025 WorldSBK!
Bimota is back! The 2025 WorldSBK season will have one more manufacturer: the prestigious Italian brand has returned to WorldSBK in collaboration with Kawasaki, a move that has shaken both the paddock and the fans.
The new for 2025 ‘bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team’ has already started its 2025 WorldSBK challenge debuting the just born Bimota KB998 at Jerez Winter Test. With former KRT riders Alex Lowes and Axel Bassani signed, the duo achieved good lap times only few days after the end of the 2024 season.
An early start to this new racing project that has raised lots of interest but also questions: why Kawasaki Racing Team is the 2025 Bimota team? There will be Kawasaki bikes on the 2025 WorldSBK grid too? And even for the younger fans… what is Bimota?
We put some light in this questions while we wait for the release of the official 2025 bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team merchandising collection.
Bimota by Kawasaki: understanding the partnership
Since 2019, Kawasaki is a major shareholder of Bimota. This had immediate effect for the historic Italian brand, still based at Rimini, starting to release new models with Kawasaki engines and alien technology.
As part of the promotion of the brand, but also to enter the competitive sportbikes segment, for 2025 Bimota and Kawasaki have joined forces to bring back Bimota to WorldSBK. The first step has been creating a new machine to tackle the challenge: in this way the Bimota KB998 has born, featuring a 1000cc inline four engine from the ZX-10RR and its electronics while Bimota created all the other components, including the chassis and main design lines.
But all this activity raised a few questions, as Kawasaki was officially engaged with their factory Kawasaki Racing Team, managed by Provec Racing. The final movement by both factories have been quite interesting: Bimota racing effort have been integrated in the factory team, keeping Provec Racing structure, to create the new ‘bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team’ (BbKRT) for 2025. By its part, Kawasaki will continue to have an official representation as a standalone via Puccetti Racing, a team who has been ‘promoted’ with official bikes and support from the Akashi brand featuring the name ‘Kawasaki WorldSBK Team’.
Bimota: a short history
Bimota is a welcome addition to WorldSBK manufacturers plateau. An historic and prestigious brand, has been closely linked to production machines of high performance with a strong philosophy of ‘from the track to the road’.
Bimota is a small, artisanal, manufacturer from Rimini city, in Italy (close to the Misano circuit). The brand was founded in 1973 by three Italian bike enthusiast: Valerio Bianchi, Giuseppe Morri, and Massimo Tamburini – the former famous for being the designer of iconic motorbikes like the Ducati 916 or the MV Agusta F4. All three together started to create high-quality chassis around turned engines of other bigger brands under the name Bimota, a portmanteau derived from the first two letters of each of the three founders.
Their good craftmanship allow then to stand out, also making competitive machinery for races. Their effort paid off with Jon Ekerold winning the 350cc GP World Championship in 1980 with Yamaha engine. From then on, Bimota started a glorious decade for this small manufacturer, achieving also the Formula 1 TT World Championship in 1987 with Virginio Ferrari.
Bimota at WorldSBK: one of the OG’s
The Rimini company one of the original manufacturers to be part of the first season of the FIM World Superbike Championship, back in 1988.
In fact, a Bimota has the honor of being the very first winner bike in a WorldSBK race: Davide Tardozzi won the inaugural Race 1 at Donington Park on April 3rd, 1988, onboard his YB4 (‘Y’ standing for Yamaha engine, a 750cc inline four from the FZR750R). It was a strong beginning for the Bimota official team in a season that they achieved 7 victories and a total of 11 podiums. Unfortunately for the Italians, it was not enough to be world champions, with Tardozzi and Stephan Mertens finishing 3rd and 4th in the riders standing and Bimota as runner-up in the manufacturers’ title.
Next year, Bimota charged again in the title fight with new riders onboard the trusted YB4. Giancarlo Falappa won 3 races and two more podiums in 1989, but overall, the performance was far from the previous year and both riders and brand were not in the honor positions on the general standings when the season finished. From 1990, the Bimota S.p.A. factory team became absent in WorldSBK and only some private entries equipped their machinery for the whole 90’s decade.
Superbike fans had to wait until 2000 to see Bimota back in the game, and what a comeback! Equipped with the new SB8R (‘S’ standing for Suzuki, featuring a 1000cc V2 TL1000S engine), the official team had a strong start with local Anthony Gobert winning at Phillip Island Race 1, then the second round of the year. But financial troubles for the brand didn’t allow the team to continue and finally shelved their WorldSBK season halfway.
It will take thirteen years to see again a Bimota in a WorldSBK track. In an ambitious move, Bimota – who just entered a new chapter with new owners – started the 2014 season in the WorldSBK EVO sub-class. This category had their own technical rulebook, using the same spec that would be mandatory for all bikes for the next season. Bimota partnered with the successful Alstare Racing for this return with a project to be part of the main class for the future. Using the brand new BB3 (the first ‘B’ standing for BMW, featuring a 1000cc inline four from the S1000RR), the team raced with Ayrton Badovini and Chrisitan Iddon with good results in the EVO class. Sadly, the team was hit again with problems, as the production for the homologation of the BB3 didn’t succeed and Bimota was not allowed to continue racing after nine rounds. This was the final appearance of Bimota in WorldSBK until now.
Fortunately, the future looks brighter for the Rimini brand, will Bimota and Kawasaki make a comeback to the glory days of the brand?