Your Guide to the 2024 WorldSBK Season

The 2024 WorldSBK season has the potential to be one of the most unpredictable in the series’ history, despite the recent domination of Ducati and Alvaro Bautista.

A number of changes have freshened up the World Superbike Championship for 2024, from changes to the technical regulations to rider moves and even a fresh schedule for one of the events.

Overview

2024 WorldSBK Championship Standings - WorldSBK riders' standings after round one, Australia

2024 WorldSBK Teams & Riders - A number of moves makes the 2024 grid distinct from 2023, but Alvaro Bautista and Ducati are still the favourites

2024 WorldSBK Races - 11 of 12 rounds are in Europe, but there's still two new circuits with Cremona and Balaton Park joining

2024 WorldSBK Regulation Changes - Adjustable rev limits are swapped for a minimum rider weight in the search for parity

2024 WorldSBK Championship Standings

Round two of the 2024 WorldSBK Championship saw Toprak Razgalioglu take his first two wins with BMW and Alvaro Bautista take his first win of 2024. It is Nicolo Bulea, though, who leads the points to round three, as the top four are separated by only 16 points.

2024 WorldSBK Riders' Standings

2024 WorldSBK Teams & Riders

At the top, Alvaro Bautista’s retention at Ducati would make it seem that the 2024 WorldSBK season is one of general stability, as the rider who has dominated the last two seasons remains with the team and bike with which he achieved that domination. However, below the champion the moves have been plenty.

The headline changes coming into the 2024 season are for Toprak Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea. Razgatlioglu found he was unable to beat Bautista on the Yamaha R1, and so switched the more powerful but less rounded BMW M 1000 RR and the factory ROKIT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK team. To replace him, Yamaha signed six-time WorldSBK Champion Jonathan Rea to its factory Pata Prometeon Yamaha squad.

Rea’s departure from Kawasaki left the space open for Axel Bassani to become a factory rider, in turn leaving a space open at the Motocorsa Ducati team for Michael Ruben Rinaldi to slot into after he made way for 2023 WorldSSP Champion Nicolo Bulega to slot into the Aruba.it Racing Ducati squad alongside the aforementioned Bautista. 

New additions for 2024 include Andrea Iannone, who is back in World Championship action, after his drug ban from 2019 ended, with the Go Eleven Ducati team, while Sam Lowes and Marc VDS make their respective WorldSBK debuts together, also with Ducati machinery.

The full 2024 WorldSBK entry list is below.

2024 WorldSBK Entry List

2024 WorldSBK Races

The 2024 WorldSBK season will take place almost exclusively in Europe, where it will visit two new circuits. The basic reason for the Euro-centric calendar is money, because Indonesia decided to cancel their round because the Mandalika Street Circuit at which it was held was losing money on it, and because Argentina decided to cancel their round because their economy is a mess (which also, ultimately, was the cause of the Argentinian MotoGP race’s cancellation).

In the end, the result for WorldSBK is a championship mainly held within Europe, with the Australian Round in Phillip Island set to be the only non-European round when it opens the season on 23-25 February.

That does not mean the calendar is totally stale, though, as the Cremona circuit in Italy and the Balaton Park track in Hungary join the calendar, each making their WorldSBK debuts. Additionally, the Portuguese Round at Portimao has its main races scheduled for 19:00 local time on Saturday and Sunday.

The full, 12-round 2024 WorldSBK calendar is below.

2024 WorldSBK Schedule

*Evening race schedule

WorldSBK 2024 Regulation Changes

There are a couple of regulations that have been changed for the 2024 WorldSBK season, and they are mostly to do with performance balancing. 

In one instance, the performance of the bikes has been unrestricted in 2024, because the previous rev limit adjustment has been scrapped. This means that all bikes will be able to rev to their manufacturer-determined RPM limits, and will not be restricted by an RPM limit imposed by the championship based on success.

On the other hand, the bikes - or some of them, at least - will be restricted by a new minimum rider weight limit of 78kg. This has been introduced on the back of Alvaro Bautista’s success, and a perception that a reason for his domination of the championship in the past two seasons has been because of his light weight which, in combination with the high horsepower output of the Ducati Panigale V4 R, gives him an advantage in straight line speed, which in turn allows him to conserve his tyres more than the other, heavier riders who have to push harder in the corners to keep pace with Bautista.

We will only know if the rule will have created greater parity in the championship once the season has begun in Phillip Island, where the Bautista-Ducati combination has historically been very competitive.