{"id":441700,"date":"2026-01-27T23:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T23:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/441700\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T23:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T23:39:10","slug":"garrett-gerloff-gives-initial-verdict-on-updated-worldsbk-kawasaki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/441700\/","title":{"rendered":"Garrett Gerloff gives initial verdict on updated WorldSBK Kawasaki"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Kawasaki\u2019s sole WorldSBK rider, Garrett Gerloff, has given his initial verdict on the updates for the 2026 ZX-10RR.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Of the changes made to this year\u2019s Kawasaki, the most obvious is the fairing, which now features winglets around the top of the front fairing in a similar place to the winglets on the Honda CBR1000RR-R, or the Yamaha R1.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Gerloff got his first chance to try the updated bike in production form during the launch photoshoot in Jerez last year, but his first time on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/wsbk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">World Superbike<\/a> machine was at the same Andalusian circuit earlier this month (21\u201322 January).<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">However, rain on both days meant that running was limited and the American was unable to get much information on the new bike.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for two months to get out here and ride this new bike and I\u2019ve been really looking forward to it, and of course the weather has been just horrible the whole time \u2013 frustrating for myself and the whole team,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/wsbk\/racer\/995206\/garrett-gerloff\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Garrett Gerloff<\/a> told WorldSBK.com.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIn the end, we got 20 laps in the dry-ish \u2013 it was like half-wet, half-dry out there, a little sketchy, a lot of guys crashed in the water in turn five. Luckily we stayed up on two wheels and I got to kind of feel a bit of a difference from the aero package from last year to this year, so that was positive.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cBut, in the end, it wasn\u2019t enough laps to get a full feeling for everything and we still need more time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Gerloff was at least able to garner some idea of the changes in bike character caused by the aerodynamics, but with so little mileage he needs more time to verify his feelings.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI felt like I was able to turn better in the faster corners and I had the front a bit more planted on the ground, and so that\u2019s what we were all hoping for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cSo, that\u2019s good, but we need to know what it\u2019s like in hotter conditions when the track\u2019s got less grip, because obviously if the track\u2019s got more grip now than it did last year because of the temperature being less I\u2019m going to have better turning anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cSo, it\u2019s trying to cancel out those variables and make sure we\u2019re actually making progress forward. So far I think that\u2019s the case.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kawasaki\u2019s sole WorldSBK rider, Garrett Gerloff, has given his initial verdict on the updates for the 2026 ZX-10RR.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,109804,109805,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-441700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-garrett-gerloff","tag-kawasaki-worldsbk-team","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}