History And Novelty Await Gerloff At Round Eight
Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki WorldSBK Team) is about to play his part in a landmark WorldSBK weekend at the all-new venue of Balaton Park in Hungary. This event will take place between 25-27 July 2025.
The historic element relates to the FIM Superbike World Championship reaching the important milestone of 1,000 individual races.
This will happen at the start of the ten-lap Superpole Race on Sunday, 27 July.
Balaton Park also hosts the first WorldSBK event in Hungary since 1990. That year, the Hungaroring provided the backdrop for the weekend action.
The novelty element comes from the fact that the all-new Balaton Park circuit will host its first ever WorldSBK round this coming weekend. The new track has a very contemporary and relatively compact layout. It measures 4.075km in length yet features no less than 17 corners, including three chicanes.
The Kawasaki WorldSBK team enters Balaton after its most successful round of the season so far. Over the three races in the UK, Gerloff recorded an eighth place, another eighth, and then a season personal best of sixth place. Therefore, he scored points in every race for the first time since he joined Kawasaki this year.
Balaton Park truly will be a new experience for Gerloff and his Ninja ZX-10RR.
Unlike many of his peers, he has not ridden around the circuit yet. None of the WorldSBK riders who lapped the new Hungarian circuit recently have used their full spec race machines there. They only used their ‘training bikes’, which are more akin to regular road-going machines.
The fact that the riders in the championship will have their first taste of the new circuit on their full race WorldSBK spec machines on Friday, 25 July is significant.
Just like Garrett and his highly-respected Kawasaki WorldSBK Team, they will hopefully experience a leveled playing field before the Superpole Qualifying session starts on Saturday, 26 July.
The weekend schedule at Balaton Park for the WorldSBK contenders starts with Free Practice One and Two on Friday.
Then, FP3, Superpole Qualifying, and Race One occur on Saturday. Finally, the Superpole ‘Sprint’ Race and a full-distance Race Two are held on Sunday.
After the eighth round of the championship in Hungary, the traditional summer break starts in earnest. The ninth round will not take place until 5-7 September at the regular WorldSBK venue of Magny Cours in France.
Garrett Gerloff stated:
“This round will be different and very interesting at a track that is new to everybody. Some riders have had a chance to ride it, with production bikes, but for me it will be totally new. It will be important to work effectively as a team right from first practice, to find a good setup. I usually learn new tracks quickly and can be almost immediately competitive, so we hope that’s the case this weekend.”