A little over a week before the start of round five of the Superbike World Championship, set to take place at the Misano World Circuit, and Kawasaki Puccetti Racing has announced it will field Tito Rabat aboard the team’s Ninja ZX-10RR for the remainder of the 2023 season.
Having concluded its collaboration with Tom Sykes, the responsibility now falls on the 2014 Moto2 World Champion for what will be a welcome return for the team’s home round at Misano. Tito Rabat has in fact already raced with Kawasaki Puccetti Racing, competing in three rounds in 2021 (Portimao, San Juan Villicum and Mandalika) and one in 2022, at the same Misano World Circuit.
Tito Rabat was born in Barcelona on 25 May 1989 and began to race in the CEV 125 in 2004 before moving up to the world championship, in the same category, in 2006. During the 2011 season, he competed in Moto2, amassing twelve wins and thirty-three podiums over the five years he spent in the intermediate class. He was crowned world champion in 2014. 2016 saw him move to MotoGP, where he remained until 2021. He then decided to switch to WorldSBK, a championship in which he has contested 35 races to date, scoring a total of 53 points. This season he is competing in both the MotoE World Championship and the Spanish ESBK 1000, in which he finished as champion in 2022.
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“I’m pleased to announce the return of Tito Rabat to our team. In both 2021 and 2022, the Spaniard was tasked with standing in for an injured rider, which is never easy, and he raced without having chance to test, so without knowing our bike. Despite that, Tito always proved to be the consummate professional, with significant experience under his belt in both the Moto2 and MotoGP championship. It will be a pleasure for us to have him back on the team for this home round of Misano, where our goal will be to continue developing the bike and try to improve on the results scored thus far.”
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“I’m pleased to return to Team Puccetti and Kawasaki. This is a great opportunity for me to return to WorldSBK but also keep up the race pace, because this year I’m competing in MotoE where there are not so many races. I’ll try to make the most of this opportunity and help Manuel Puccetti’s team as they continue to develop their bike. I have had some great times with this team and there is much respect both ways, so I think this is a good time to rejoin them and achieve more success. I want to have fun of course, and give it my all, but also complete all the races in order to collect as much data as possible. See you all at Misano!”.
