American Superbike rider Garrett Gerloff has signed a contract with Kawasaki Puccetti Racing for the 2025 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship season. This move will be his third partnership with a different brand within the championship, having previously competed with Yamaha and BMW.
Gerloff will join the team following the withdrawal of his current team, Bonovo Action BMW, at the end of the 2024 season. The reasons for his withdrawal from the championship, according to Jürgen Röder, were due to personal reasons, although it is speculated that the real reason is financial.
This has been Garrett Gerloff’s career in WorldSBK
Garrett Gerloff made his debut in the Superbike World Championship in 2020, having previously competed in MotoAmerica. Throughout his first season, racing with the GRT Yamaha team, he achieved three podium finishes, quickly proving himself as a strong contender on the track.
His performances included podium finishes in Race 2 at Barcelona and twice at Estoril. In the 2021 season, he managed to get on the podium twice more: once in the Tissot Superpole Race at Aragon and once in Race 2 at Donington Park. However, his final season with Yamaha in 2022 proved to be more complicated, achieving only one podium in Race 1 at Barcelona.
For the 2023 season, Garrett Gerloff signed for the Bavarian marque, joining the Bonovo Action BMW team. Despite failing to score podium finishes, he showed consistent performance and ended the year as BMW’s top driver. In 2024, his best result was a fourth place in Race 1 at Portimao this past weekend, but it was midway through the season when it was announced that Bonovo Action BMW would withdraw from the championship at the end of the year, leaving Gerloff without a team for the following season.
2025: New challenge with Kawasaki
Garrett Gerloff quickly found a new team, signing with Kawasaki Puccetti Racing for 2025. This will be his third manufacturer in WorldSBK, after Yamaha and BMW. The Puccetti Racing team will use the Kawasaki ZX-10RR, maintaining its presence in the championship despite the launch of the Bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team project.
Gerloff will ride the ZX-10RR for the current season, with access to official data and hardware, as the team has become an “official” Kawasaki structure.
Reactions from the team and Kawasaki
Team owner Manuel Puccetti was pleased with the addition of Garrett Gerloff and the fact that the team has become an official Kawasaki team. He highlighted the effort and dedication that have led Puccetti Racing to become a competitive and successful team, with a track record of more than 120 podium finishes.
Likewise, Shigemi Tanaka, General Manager of the Marketing and Sales Division of Kawasaki Motors, Ltd, highlighted the importance of maintaining the presence of the Ninja brand in WorldSBK and is confident that the collaboration with Puccetti Racing will allow Kawasaki to continue to show its potential in the championship.
With this new alliance, both Garrett Gerloff and the Puccetti Racing team will seek to raise the bar in the 2025 season, hoping to delight their entire legion of Ninja brand fans.
