BbKRT Riders Inside The Early ...

An intensely hot first day at Motorland Aragon kicked off the sixth round of the 2026 FIM Superbike World Championship for Alex Lowes and Axel Bassani, with the bimota KB998 Rimini duo finishing up third and fourth fastest, respectively.

The Motorland WorldSBK weekend began in unusually warm conditions, even in the morning’s FP1 session. There was still a significant rise of 15/16°C in track temperatures between FP1 and FP2, which meant that only two riders of the 23 set faster times in the afternoon than in the morning.

Axel and Alex had been quick in both sessions, making the most of the strong chassis and handling package of the KB998, and only losing out on the fastest sectors of the 5.077km long track.

With such hot track temperatures in evidence all day, outright grip was reduced for all riders. Nonetheless, the hard work and valuable experiences of day one should help both BbKRT riders on Saturday and Sunday as both 18-lap ‘long’ races will take place in the heat of the afternoon.

The current hot weather conditions are forecast to continue over the final two days of the race weekend. WorldSBK Race One begins at 14.00 and Race Two at 15.30.

On Saturday 30 May, Alex and Axel will take part in a short FP3 session, Tissot Superpole Qualifying, and then the first full-distance Race One. On Sunday 31 May, there will be a short ten-lap Superpole Race and then the final 18-lap Race Two.

Alex Lowes, stated: “We will see how the races will be, but we are usually quite fast on the first day, pushing hard to be on the early pace. We are quite confident and working well together. Many times we start the weekends quite well. I enjoyed today on the bike. I tried something with my riding position in the afternoon, for the hot conditions, but it didn’t feel as good. We will go back to what we know for the first race, but we are always trying to improve and find some small steps. It was quite a positive opening day, and it will be a hot race tomorrow. I am looking forward to it.”

Axel Bassani, stated: “Usually when we arrive at a track that is supposed to be not the best for us, we sometimes go better. I don’t know why. This year is like this, and our sport is like this, so never say never. I think we started in quite a good way, like we did in the previous round in Most and also during the recent test in Misano. We were always there in the mix of Ducatis today. At the moment, our goal is to be the best of the ‘normal’ bikes. We are doing it, and we have to be as focused as possible and continue in this way. Our race pace was always 1’49s, and we saw in the afternoon that not a lot of riders were always able to stay in the 1’49s. We can and we need to improve by two or three tenths, but I think at the moment it is not bad.”