Second Italian Race Weekend For BbKRT
Words and images courtesy of Kawasaki Press Racing
The bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team (BbKRT) will take part in what will be a second home round of the season.
Riders Axel Bassani and Alex Lowes will enter the track at the Misano World Circuit ‘Marco Simoncelli’, between 13-15 June.
The Misano event will be held just a few kilometres down the Adriatic coast from the bimota factory HQ in Rimini. Misano has another significance. At the end of this event, half of the 12-Round WorldSBK season will have been completed.
After the opening five rounds and 15 individual races of the 2025 season, the bimota KB998 Rimini has already proved potent. It has allowed Alex and Axel to post some strong results. This is notable, even in the relatively early stages of the WorldSBK machines’ development.
So far, Axel’s personal best is a fifth place. He secured this result in the final race at Assen in April. Alex has taken the single best result of the season. He achieved a fourth place in the opening race of the recent Most race weekend.
Axel is currently tenth in the championship standings. Alex is 11th.
The riders from seventh to 12th in the overall rankings are close, separated by a mere 11 points entering the Misano round. The close nature of the fight for top ten places means that there is a great opportunity at Misano for both bimota riders. They can make progress in the points table.
Axel and Alex have had a chance to test at Misano recently, against almost all their 2025 rivals. This took place in a two day track session held between 27-28 May. Axel was in particularly strong form at his home venue, finishing third fastest in the combined times.
Misano has been something of a WorldSBK regular venue for decades.
It has hosted over 60 individual WorldSBK races. It is almost completely flat. However, it contains a great variety of cornering challenges along its 4.226km length. Among these is the awesomely fast Curvone at the end of the back straight.
Misano is a form of stadium circuit with grandstands in many strategic areas. It has even hosted floodlit night races in the local Italian CIV Championship series.
Race weekend for what is the second and final Italian-based round of the year gets underway with Free Practice One, on 13 June.
There will be three points scoring races in all at Misano.
The first one is on Saturday, 14 June. There are two more on Sunday, 15 June.
Axel Bassani stated:
“This weekend we will have another home race. It is always good to ride at home. Especially because this time we are really close to the bimota factory, only 20 minutes away. It is a real home round. Like always, I hope to enjoy it. I wish to push 100% on track and give to bimota what they deserve – some good results. We will try to continue to improve the bike set-up. We know which areas we have to improve. It is not easy to improve immediately but I hope in the near future we can. Now, the level of WorldSBK is really high. We have a brand new bike this year. We are trying to do our best. After the recent test at Misano I am feeling quite good. Our pace is not bad. So, with the team, I think we can do a good job during the weekend.”
Alex Lowes stated:
“It’s going to be a fun weekend at the real home race for bimota. We worked hard at the Misano test a few weeks ago and learned a lot about the bike. Since the test, we’ve been working hard to analyse the data and put everything together for race weekend. The track itself is a lot of fun to ride. I want to keep trying to improve and fight for our best results of the season with the bimota KB998.”