The Acerbis French Round was the season in microcosm: Bulega took a dominant hat-trick at Magny-Cours, team-mate Iker Lecuona followed him home in second all three times, and the final podium steps were shared between Sam Lowes and Yari Montella. It means Bulega can clinch the championship at the next round — on home soil at Cremona on 26–27 September, with Estoril and Jerez still to come.

Our grading is simple. Each rider gets a mark out of ten reflecting their entire 2026 body of work: raw results, yes, but also the strength of their package, the experience in their garage, and whether they are trending up or down. A rookie overachieving on a satellite bike can outscore a race winner underachieving on factory machinery. Here’s the table they race under — then the verdicts.

1. Nicolò Bulega — Aruba.it Ducati 9.9 / 10 ▲ CHAMPION-ELECT

What more is there to say? After two seasons as Razgatlıoğlu’s runner-up, Bulega was handed the favourite’s tag the moment Toprak signed for Pramac — and he has shouldered it without a flicker of doubt. Eighteen wins by the Aragon round alone, a hat-trick at Magny-Cours, 553 points and a 146-point cushion with three rounds remaining: this is one of the most dominant campaigns in WorldSBK history, up there with the peak Rea and Toprak years. The renewed Panigale V4R — revised aero, new swingarm — never suffered the teething problems rival factories hoped for, and Bulega has extracted everything from it. The only thing left on his 2026 to-do list is the coronation itself, which can come at Cremona in front of his home crowd. Beyond that, his future is already written: a MotoGP seat with VR46 awaits in 2027, mirroring Toprak’s path out of the series. WorldSBK will miss him. It has barely seen him for dust.

2. Iker Lecuona — Aruba.it Ducati 8.6 / 10 ■ STEADY

Stepping into the most coveted seat in the paddock — the one Álvaro Bautista was moved aside to vacate — brought crushing pressure, and Lecuona has handled it about as well as anyone could reasonably expect. Three second places at Magny-Cours made it a perfect wingman weekend, and 407 points is a formidable tally that would have won him titles in other eras. The problem is purely mathematical: he is 146 points behind the man on the identical bike. Lecuona has been fast, consistent and error-free, but he has not yet beaten Bulega in a straight fight often enough to be anything other than the clear number two. His grade reflects genuine quality — on any other team he’d be a title protagonist — tempered by the gap to his garage-mate. A maiden win before the season ends would change the conversation.

3. Yari Montella — Barni Spark Ducati 8.3 / 10 ▲ RISING

The find of the season. In his second year with Barni, Montella has graduated from promising rookie to the undisputed best independent rider on the grid — 247 points, third in the championship, and a podium at Magny-Cours to underline it. He has out-scored his far more decorated team-mate Bautista by more than two to one, which tells you everything about where his trajectory points. Montella combines qualifying speed with race craft that belies his experience, and on a satellite Panigale he is routinely the man harassing the factory red bikes. If Ducati’s rider market moves again for 2027, his name will be near the top of every list. This is what a future factory rider looks like.

4. Alex Lowes — bimota by Kawasaki 7.9 / 10 ■ STEADY

The bimota project was 2025’s great unknown; in 2026 it is simply a very good racing motorcycle, and Alex Lowes is the man proving it. Fourth in the standings on 201 points, he has been the KB998 Rimini’s reference rider from the first test, squeezing podiums out of a package still in its infancy against Ducati’s armada. Lowes has always been one of the paddock’s most underrated racers — fast, brave, technically sharp — and his feedback is visibly steering bimota’s development. He beats his team-mate more often than not and has been the highest-placed non-Ducati rider for much of the year. At 35, he is riding as well as he ever has.

5. Sam Lowes — ELF Marc VDS Ducati 7.7 / 10 ▲ RISING

The younger Lowes brother is having the best WorldSBK season of his career. Fifth in the championship on 198 points — three behind Alex, which must make family dinners interesting — with a Magny-Cours podium among his highlights. The Marc VDS squad has matured alongside him after both parties’ rookie campaign last year, and the consistency that was always the missing ingredient is finally there: he is a fixture in the top six and the second-best independent rider behind Montella. The maiden WorldSBK win he craves hasn’t arrived yet, but on current form it feels like a matter of when, not if. A quietly excellent season.

6. Lorenzo Baldassarri — Team GoEleven Ducati 7.4 / 10 ■ STEADY

Baldassarri’s return to WorldSBK, parachuted into the GoEleven seat vacated by Andrea Iannone, has been a success measured in quiet top-eights rather than headlines. Sixth in the championship on 171 points, he adapted to the Panigale faster than expected for a rider who had never raced a Ducati, and has been the model of consistency — rarely spectacular, almost never invisible. In a satellite field this deep, sixth overall is genuinely impressive. What he lacks so far is a signature Sunday: no podiums, no headline results. The foundation is built; the next step is turning top-six regularity into rostrum contention.

7. Axel Bassani — bimota by Kawasaki 7.1 / 10 ■ STEADY

Bassani’s second bimota season has been solid without quite igniting. Seventh on 169 points, he runs his team-mate closer than the standings sometimes suggest and remains one of the most aggressive overtakers in the field — few riders make the KB998 look as racy in traffic. The arrival of new crew chief Uri Pallarés, Jonathan Rea’s former right-hand man, was supposed to unlock another level; instead the season has been one of incremental gains. He trails Alex Lowes by 32 points with the same machinery, which is the gap he needs to close. Fast, fearless, still searching for the final tenth.

8. Alberto Surra — Motocorsa Ducati 7.3 / 10 ▲ RISING

Here is the power-ranking case for a rookie ranked above his championship position. Surra, parachuted into the Motocorsa seat, has 120 points and ninth in the standings — ahead of a two-time world champion on similar equipment — in his first WorldSBK campaign. Rookies are supposed to spend year one learning circuits and crashing occasionally; Surra has instead been a points-scoring machine, finishing inside the top ten with metronomic regularity. The raw speed ceiling is still unknown, and the second half of the season has tested his consistency on unfamiliar tracks, but this is precisely the profile teams scout for. One of 2026’s genuine success stories.

9. Garrett Gerloff — Kawasaki WorldSBK Team 6.6 / 10 ■ STEADY

Gerloff’s second year as Kawasaki’s lone factory standard-bearer has been a lonely one. Eighth on 126 points, he has wrung respectable results from a ZX-10RR that received only evolutionary updates — improved aero, minor refinements — while the Ducati and bimota projects moved the goalposts. The Texan remains one of the grid’s most popular and professional figures, and his feedback is clearly valued in green, but the machinery gap is real and the one-bike programme limits development speed. He deserved better tools; instead he’s been the paddock’s most dignified damage-limitation exercise.

10. Álvaro Bautista — Barni Spark Ducati 6.2 / 10 ▼ FALLING

The hardest grade to write. Bautista is a two-time World Champion and one of the greatest riders of the WorldSBK era — and 2026 has been a struggle. Tenth in the standings on 119 points, out-scored more than two-to-one by his own team-mate Montella, the 41-year-old has looked a step off the pace all season after being moved out of the factory Aruba squad. Whether it’s motivation, set-up, or simply the cruel arithmetic of age in a young man’s championship, the magic that produced back-to-back titles has been missing. The paddock would love one more Sunday surge before he decides his future. On 2026 evidence alone, this is where he ranks — but the career résumé buys him enormous respect.

11. Andrea Locatelli — Pata Maxus Yamaha 6.4 / 10 ▼ FALLING

Third in the championship in 2025, Locatelli was supposed to inherit Yamaha’s leadership after Rea’s retirement — instead 2026 has been a plateau. The R1 has lost ground to the Ducati and bimota projects, and Locatelli has been unable to drag it into podium contention the way Rea once did. He remains metronomically consistent and rarely beats himself, but “best of the Japanese bikes” is a smaller prize than it used to be. Yamaha’s long-term faith — he’s signed through 2027 — needs a technical response to match. The rider is doing his job; the package isn’t.

12. Miguel Oliveira — ROKiT BMW Motorrad 6.3 / 10 ■ STEADY

Replacing Toprak Razgatlıoğlu was the most thankless task on the 2026 grid, and Oliveira has approached it with a MotoGP winner’s professionalism. Around the 100-point mark at Magny-Cours, he has been BMW’s clear leader — out-scoring both Petrucci and van der Mark comfortably — and his race pace has frequently been better than his qualifying results suggest. The M1000 RR, so dominant in Toprak’s hands, has looked ordinary without him, which raises uncomfortable questions about how much of 2024–25 was the bike and how much was the Turk. Oliveira is rebuilding his reputation one gritty top-eight at a time.

13. Xavi Vierge — Pata Maxus Yamaha 6.1 / 10 ■ STEADY

Vierge arrived from Honda with Rea’s personal endorsement and a strong winter testing programme — and has delivered a season that is merely fine. He has run Locatelli close on several weekends and been the top Yamaha more than once, but the podiums that would mark him as a future leader haven’t materialised. In his defence, he joined a team in transition and a bike in relative decline; the winter hype was probably unfair. Solid, professional, unspectacular — the kind of season that keeps a factory seat without ever grabbing the spotlight.

14. Tarran Mackenzie — MGM Optical Express Ducati 5.9 / 10 ■ STEADY

Retained by MGM after his mid-season substitute appearances in 2025, Mackenzie has repaid that faith with a workmanlike first full campaign. Regularly in the points and occasionally troubling the top ten, he has been exactly what a small independent team needs: reliable, quick enough, and crash-light. The 81-point tally at Magny-Cours reflects a rider maximising a second-tier package. Whether there’s another gear — the one that made him a BSB champion — remains the open question of his WorldSBK career.

15. Danilo Petrucci — ROKiT BMW Motorrad 5.6 / 10 ▼ FALLING

From race winner in 2025 to the midfield in 2026: Petrucci’s move to replace Toprak at BMW has not gone to plan. Well adrift of team-mate Oliveira on roughly half the points, the Italian has never looked comfortable on the M1000 RR, and the swashbuckling form that made him a fan favourite at Barni has been missing. At 35, with the bike’s development now centred on Oliveira’s feedback, the second half of the season has the feel of a rider fighting for his place in the paddock’s future plans. The talent is undeniable; the fit hasn’t worked.

16. Tommy Bridewell — Superbike Advocates Ducati 5.4 / 10 ■ STEADY

The 2023 BSB champion’s WorldSBK adventure continues to be a story of grit over glamour. Fifty-nine points for a small privateer outfit is respectable, and Bridewell has consistently been the second-best of the true privateer Ducatis behind Surra’s Motocorsa. His racecraft — honed over years of bruising BSB title fights — makes him a nightmare to pass, and several of his top-ten finishes have come at the expense of factory-contracted riders. The ceiling of the project is what it is, but within it, Bridewell is delivering.

17. Remy Gardner — GYTR GRT Yamaha 5.2 / 10 ■ STEADY

The 2021 Moto2 world champion’s WorldSBK career has stalled at “occasionally points-scoring.” Gardner has flashes — a strong qualifying here, a top-ten there — but the GRT Yamahas are a long way from the factory Pata bikes’ already-limited competitiveness, and the Australian has been unable to transcend the equipment. His raw speed has never been the question; converting it into Sunday results on this package is. Another season of treading water for a rider who deserves a clearer path forward.

18. Stefano Manzi — GYTR GRT Yamaha 5.0 / 10 ■ STEADY

The reigning World Supersport champion stepped up with justified hype and has found the water deep. Manzi has matched Gardner’s points tally for much of the year — respectable for a rookie on a satellite R1 — but the adaptation to Superbike weight, power and Pirelli behaviour has been slower than his Supersport dominance suggested. The class of his title-winning 2025 hasn’t vanished; it’s being recalibrated. Year two will be the true measure.

19. Michael van der Mark — ROKiT BMW Motorrad 4.6 / 10 ▼ FALLING

A season to forget. Van der Mark has been a WorldSBK race winner and a factory Yamaha mainstay, but 2026 has delivered single-digit highlights and long anonymous Sundays. Third in the BMW pecking order behind Oliveira and even the struggling Petrucci at times, the Dutchman’s 23 points tell a bleak story. Injuries and machinery have played their part, but in a contract-driven paddock, results are the only currency — and his has been devalued all year.

20. Somkiat Chantra — Honda HRC 4.2 / 10 ▼ FALLING

Chantra’s season was compromised before it began: a winter training injury cost him the opening rounds, and he has been playing catch-up on a CBR1000RR-R that is itself years behind the front. Single-digit points for a factory Honda rider is a brutal statistic, though context softens it — the bike is the grid’s clear weak link, and his team-mates have fared no better. The speed that took him to MotoGP is still there, buried under a project in rebuild mode.

21. Tetsuya Nagashima — Honda HRC 4.0 / 10 ■ STEADY

Drafted into HRC’s all-change line-up, Nagashima has been a willing soldier in a losing battle. Seven points is a meagre return, but he has consistently been Honda’s most reliable finisher and his technical feedback — honed by years as a Japanese championship frontrunner and test rider — is valued inside a project now leaning heavily on Jonathan Rea’s development input. Someone has to do the unglamorous mileage. Nagashima has done it without complaint.

22. Jake Dixon — Honda HRC 3.8 / 10 ▼ FALLING

The most perplexing season on the grid. Dixon arrived from Moto2 as a proven race winner with genuine momentum — and is still waiting for his first WorldSBK point. Zero after Magny-Cours is a statistic nobody predicted, and while the Honda’s deficiencies excuse much, team-mate Chantra has at least troubled the scorers. Adaptation to the Superbike’s braking zones and Pirelli tyres has been brutally slow. The talent is real; the clock is ticking on showing it.

23. Bahattin Sofuoğlu — Motoxracing Yamaha 3.5 / 10 ■ STEADY

Four points for the family team’s sole representative. Sofuoğlu carries one of the great names in Turkish motorcycle racing, but the step from Supersport frontrunner to WorldSBK points-scorer has proven steep on a privateer R1 with minimal support. Finishing races and learning circuits is the job this year; anything more was always optimistic.

24. Mattia Rato — Motoxracing Yamaha 3.2 / 10 ■ STEADY

The 20-year-old Italian, signed out of the CIV Supersport class, has two points and a season-long education. Rato has been comprehensively out-paced by the field but has kept the bike upright and banked the mileage that rookie seasons on privateer machinery are for. Judge him in 2027.

25. Ryan Vickers — Honda HRC 3.0 / 10 ■ STEADY

One point from his substitute appearances before the Honda HRC musical chairs settled. Vickers has since refocused on BSB with Honda Racing UK, where he remains a front-line threat — his WorldSBK cameo says more about HRC’s chaotic season than about a rider who is genuinely quick on home machinery.