Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki WorldSBK Team) proved to be the top non-Ducati finisher in Race Two at the 4.411km-long Magny-Cours circuit, securing a seventh place in what was eventually a 19-lap race.
In the Superpole Race, which started at 11.10 am, Gerloff was 16th after the second lap, but would move up to 13th at the flag in a dry race. Gerloff and his crew realised that changes they had made in readiness for this sprint race did not quite have the desired effect. Garrett started from the 13th grid spot in Race Two.
With an improved race set-up dialled into his Ninja ZX-10RR, Gerloff set about showing his and his machine’s capabilities to the full. He moved up into the top ten, and was eighth as the race would come to a premature end on lap 19, when another rider crashed and the red flags came out for safety reasons.
Gerloff was finally credited with a seventh-place finish, as the results are counted back to where each rider finished in each individual timed sector when the race is stopped. By that measure, Garrett was finally in seventh position.
The Texan rider left France in eighth position overall in the championship rankings, with 126 points.
The tenth round of the 2026 FIM Superbike World Championship will take place at Cremona in Italy, between 25-27 September.
Manuel Puccetti
“We leave Magny Cours with a ninth and a seventh place in the two long races. Two very positive results, also considering that Gerloff was the first of the ‘non-Ducati’ riders in Race 2. We’re now consistently in the first six to eight positions and this is just reward for the work we’re doing and that we’ll continue to during the last three rounds.”
Garrett Gerloff
“I felt like from the beginning of the weekend we had a bike for one single lap time, which we proved in Superpole Qualifying until a yellow flag cancelled my best lap time. I felt great in general for one lap, but was struggling for a longer race pace. We tried some stuff in the Superpole Race but I felt that it was not 100% helping me. We got it all sorted out in Race Two, so I felt I had a good final race. I was able to push and be as close as I could to the front. We got two top tens in France, which is not bad. Now we head to Cremona for the team’s home race and we will try to do better there.”
