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Most years in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship, several rookies feature on the grid as they look to kickstart their WorldSBK careers with a strong rookie season. 2025 is no different with four rookies, coming from three different backgrounds, aiming to impress their teams and opponents throughout this season. Yari Montella (Barni Spark Racing Team) and Bahattin Sofuoglu (Yamaha Motoxracing WorldSBK Team) both come from WorldSSP, Ryan Vickers (Motocorsa Racing) is a race winner in the British Superbike championship and Zaqhwan Zaidi (PETRONAS MIE Honda Racing Team) is an Asian Superbike champion. Let’s meet the rookie class of 2025.

MONTELLA'S PROMOTION: alongside Petrucci for debut season

Montella first showcased his potential in WorldSSP with a one-off appearance at Portimao, finishing P6 in Race 2. That got him a full-time seat with the Kawasaki Puccetti Racing team for 2022 but, despite winning in Australia, had to find a new home for 2023. He did so with Marco Barnabo’s Barni Ducati outfit as Ducati returned to the Championship. While he didn’t win in that season, he’d done enough to stay with the team for 2024 and really kicked on: seven wins and 14 podiums helped him to mount a title charge as he finished in third. It was enough to convince the team to move him into WorldSBK, alongside Danilo Petrucci, giving Montella arguably one of the best mentors to learn from in his rookie season.

Explaining how it is working with Petrucci and what he’s learnt from the #9, and his goals, Montella said at the Jerez test: “It’s like a dream. I’m in WorldSBK with Ducati with a teammate like Danilo, with a lot of experience. I hope to learn as much as possible because I think he has something to teach me. The top ten would be a target. It would be nice to fight for the Independent Riders’ title, but I know the level for this is very high because we have Iannone and Danilo, so it’s not an easy job! My goal is just to understand, to know and to improve step by step. With the team, we decided to start slowly and start to improve the bike step by step without big changes at the beginning.”

SOFUOGLU'S WORLD SUPERBIKE DEBUT: Yamaha machinery for the #99

Turkish rider Sofuoglu will make a small bit of history when he lines up on the grid, becoming just the second rider to race in WorldSSP300, WorldSSP and WorldSBK – winning races in WorldSSP300 and WorldSSP. He links up with the Yamaha Motoxracing WorldSBK Team for his rookie season on the Yamaha R1 but Bahattin, the nephew of five-time WorldSSP Champion Kenan Sofuoglu, heads into the season on the back foot after a crash in testing on Day 2 at Portimao left him with a suspect collarbone fracture. He will race alongside the experienced Tito Rabat this season, with Sofuoglu aiming to learn from the 2014 Moto2™ World Champion as the season progresses.

Discussing his upcoming rookie season on Day 1 of the Portimao test, Sofuoglu stated: “It’s difficult because there are a lot of good names, legends, many World Champions and I’m happy to be racing at the same time as them! I really appreciate it. The target that we’ve put with Kenan in the early part of the season is the top 15, but I hope I can do much better than this. I want to do something better than this because I’ve worked a lot. I want to get some superb results. Toprak’s helping me a lot, also from the beginning of my career. I’m really happy to have him inside the paddock and the track. I think he’ll help me a lot.”

VICKERS ENTERS ON THE BACK OF A RACE-WINNING DOMESTIC CAMPAIGN: high hopes for the Brit

After a race-winning campaign in the British Superbike championship, Vickers is heading to the world stage for his first full-time campaign in WorldSBK although he did compete in one round in 2022. He’s joining the Independent Ducati-powered Motocorsa Racing outfit for his rookie season and spent the winter tests adapting to the Panigale V4 R, after racing Yamaha machinery in BSB. Will the Brit be able to find success for a team that, just a couple of seasons ago, were challenging for rostrums?

Discussing his adaptation to WorldSBK machinery, Vickers said at the January Jerez test: “The electronics are so advanced. You can do corner-by-corner electronics. Before, I’d have one map for first, one map for second, and you’d make a compromise; you weren’t able to make it perfect for any corner because you might sacrifice somewhere else. Whereas now, you can make it absolutely perfect on all aspects; throttle, engine braking, absolutely everything, for each individual corner on the circuit. I have to remember I can have this option. I’m good at riding around problems because you have to in BSB and the guys on the data can see I’m riding around things, and they go, ‘Ah, we can help you with that’. I need to remember that if it’s not perfect, I can make it better. I’ve trained harder and there’s a few extra things I’ve done. I’ve upped the ante with everything because the races are longer. I’ve been doing a bit of heat training and stuff like that just to try and adapt my body to being in hotter environments because in the summer, in Europe, it can get quite hot. Hopefully, we can keep improving this.”

ZAIDI’S WORLD SUPERBIKE ADVENTURE: Independent Honda bike for the Malaysian

The MIE Honda outfit have opted to keep half of their line-up in place for 2025, with Tarran Mackenzie providing some consistency while there’s a change on the other side of the box as Zaidi comes in and Adam Norrodin departs. Zaidi’s winter testing programme was non-existent thanks to logistical issues, but he’s ridden Honda machinery before, including winning the Asian Superbike title in 2022 and finishing third in 2023.

CAN IT GET ANY CLOSER? Find out which rookies impress throughout 2025 using the WorldSBK VideoPass!