Yamaha Motor Europe’s Road Racing Sporting Manager Niccolò Canepa Comments – Round 12 – Jerez

It was a special weekend for Yamaha with an emotional goodbye to Jonathan Rea, Locatelli fighting for third place in the world championship and Yamaha running their special 70th Anniversary livery on the final race of the year. The team would also begin testing their 2026 programme, with Stefano Manzi stepping up from his title winning campaign in World Supersport, and Xavi Vierge making his debut with the Pata Maxus Yamaha World Superbike team.

Here’s what Yamaha Motor Europe’s Road Racing Sporting Manager Niccolò Canepa had to say after the weekend:

“This weekend’s final race in Jerez was a special one for several reasons, but the first was that on Thursday we unveiled the special colours to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of Yamaha Motor Company. This was special for us, as these special colours were based on the 1999 YZF-R7, a machine developed with the Superbike World Championship in mind.

It was also a special weekend as it marked the last weekend of Jonathan Rea’s WorldSBK career before he retires as a full-time rider. On Thursday, there was an exceptional press conference with Jonathan and it was nice to see so many people from the paddock turn out to show respect to this six-time World Champion.”

“There is no hiding from the fact that our time with Jonathan has not been the dream neither he nor we had hoped for, but I can honestly say to have the most successful WorldSBK racer in history ride our bike has been an honour. His input, feedback and overall personality has helped our project hugely in the last two years, even if the results did not show the true potential of the Jonathan Rea/R1 combination.

Unfortunately, his final weekend was not an easy one with two big crashes meaning he missed his final race. This was sad, as we wanted to wave off the champion in style – but we did have a moment in front of the box before Race 2 which was emotional for all. A huge thank you to Jonathan for everything over these past two seasons, even when times have been tough his commitment, dedication and passion have been commendable.

The weekend also brought to a close a successful season for Andrea Locatelli, one which saw him achieve his first WorldSBK race win and finish fourth in the championship overall. The race weekend for Andrea was not too easy, as he and the team struggled initially to find a feeling with the R1, but their hard work over the weekend improved this to end the weekend with a strong fourth place finish. Andrea has ridden very well this year, and while we just missed out on third in the championship, he is hungry for more in 2026 and we cannot wait to get started.”

“For Remy Gardner, the weekend was a case of ‘what could have been’. After his strongest Superpole of the season, he was looking good at the start of Race 1 until a rear brake issue made things more difficult for him. However, knowing this he went into Sunday full of confidence and the target of pushing for the top five but unfortunately he became caught up in Jonathan’s crash. He took quite a heavy fall and a sore shoulder hurt him in the final race of the weekend.

It was a shame not to have Dominique Aegerter with us on track for his final race with the GYTR GRT Yamaha team after his injury prior to Estoril. Dominique was a double Supersport World Champion with us, and his personality, charisma and determination have brought a lot to our project. In his place we saw the welcome return of Alessandro Delbianco, this time racing as 2025 Italian Superbike Champion. It is never easy doing a one-off race as a replacement rider, but certainly in practice, Ale showed promise and with more time on the bike could have achieved more.

In Supersport, we arrived as World Champions with Stefano Manzi having won the title last week in Estoril. In Race 1, we saw a true ‘Manzi Style’ win, charging through from ninth on the grid to win the race with a last lap, last corner over-take. He finished third in Race 2, sporting the special colours, and will now embark on an exciting new chapter.”

“Can Öncü, who had already secured the runner-up spot, returned to the podium with third in Race 1. It’s been an incredible year for Can, who has shown he is one of the fastest riders in the championship and we are confident to see what more he can achieve in the future.

In WorldSSP300, it was another strong weekend for Matteo Vannucci who won the first race to keep himself in championship contention. His form towards the end of the year has been great, and to narrowly miss out on third in the standings despite entering the weekend with a large gap is quite the achievement.

Congratulations also has to go to Maria Herrera, who won an incredibly exciting WorldWCR Championship this year, narrowly beating Beatriz Neila, who also rode incredibly well this season.

As Yamaha, we are very pleased with what we have achieved this season. When WorldWCR and the R3 Cup are present, more than 50% of the bikes in the paddock are Yamahas! As well as winning the ‘Triple Crown’ in World Supersport, we were third in the WorldSBK manufacturers’ standings and second in the WorldSSP300 manufacturer standings – with such tough competition, these results give us such pride. Of course, there are many areas where we can look to improve and we are doing this already with preparations for 2026 already beginning, not just in WorldSBK and WorldSSP but with the new World Sportbike class too.”

“Talking of 2026, we got a first glimpse of our 2026 WorldSBK line-up on track on Tuesday. It was a very positive test and important for us to test straight after the race weekend, especially for the new riders in Xavi and Stefano.

It was important for Xavi to be able to test the bike in the same conditions as the race weekend to get an idea where we are. We were extremely happy because his comments and feedback were very precise, and he made some very good improvements throughout the day. It was impressive that he ended the day as the first Yamaha, so we have to say the first test was a positive one.

For Stefano it was also a great day, it was the second time he had ridden the Superbike after Misano but the first time with the GYTR GRT Yamaha team and at Jerez. I was impressed with him, I went on track today to watch the riders and I saw that he had adapted to the Superbike riding style immediately.

With Locatelli, who knows the bike so well already, we wanted to explore some different settings which usually cannot be tried on a race weekend to see if there are areas we can improve. The target was not to do the best lap time or to use qualifying tyres, but to understand the bike more and it was really interesting.  Remy came out this morning and set a very good lap time, but he is still suffering from the crash in Sunday’s Superpole race with pain in the shoulder so it was better for him to stop, use only half a day of testing and rest for the next test.

We have some time now to prepare for the next tests, again in Jerez, between 26-27 November, where for our new riders it will be about continuing to get used to the bike while we’ll look to confirm a direction for 2026 with Locatelli and Gardner.”