Garrett Gerloff and his Ninja ZX-10RR took their first steps together into the 2025 FIM Superbike World Championship after competing in the opening free practice sessions at the 4.445km long Phillip Island circuit in Australia.
On Friday 21 February the green light for the Kawasaki WorldSBK Team and all its rivals was switched on for the first time, both literally and figuratively. Two free practice sessions were completed in dry conditions, with the second one providing track temperatures almost ten degrees hotter than the morning’s first 45-minute long session.
After two days of official testing earlier in the week, and a heavy fall at one point, Garrett had to ride the first day of race weekend on a largely rebuilt machine. His first day of free practice was therefore part evaluation and part preparation for the rest of race weekend.
At the end of Friday Gerloff ended up 15th overall, 1.4 seconds from the fastest rider.
On Saturday 22 February, Garret will compete in a third free practice session, Superpole qualifying and at 16.00 local time the first WorldSBK race of the season, which is scheduled for 20 laps.
This year the ‘long’ WorldSBK races will be held in two equal parts, with a tyre change stop for all the riders. There will also be the now traditional ten lap ‘sprint’ race, which awards half points for the top nine riders, on Sunday 23 February.
Garrett Gerloff, stated: “A lot of what we did today was just trying to find a good feeling after the end of our pre-season tests did not finish so well. The guys did an amazing job of rebuilding the bike so the feeling was good today. We are just trying to find more performance with the whole package and I am confident that with the team we can find it. Everybody is going really fast and the lap times are close, so I think a small improvement can make a big difference in the results. We will rest well tonight and try to do well tomorrow.”
