When you think Bimota, chances are images of boutique and bespoke high-performance bikes come to mind. Bikes like the Tesi H2, with its otherworldly styling, have pretty much come to define Bimota in the modern era. But recently, Bimota has sort of undergone a renaissance, as it entered the spotlight of mainstream motorcycle racing.
That’s right, not too long ago, it was announced that the Kawasaki Racing Team, or KRT, in the WorldSBK was transforming into the Bimota Racing Team, or Bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team (BbRT) to be precise.
Surely, Bimota wasn’t going to settle for merely slapping on a fancy livery to the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10RR—a motorcycle manufacturer of its stature would surely need to field its own racing machine. And so Bimota and Kawasaki decided to build an all-new machine—a bike that combines the best the two manufacturers have to offer.
Well, now that testing for the 2025 WSBK season is underway, Bimota and Kawasaki thought it fit to unveil its newest racing machine. Dubbed the KB998, this thing is essentially an all-new, from-the-ground-up superbike. The bikes frame was engineered and constructed by Bimota, and at its heart, Kawasaki’s 998cc four-banger from the ZX-10RR pumps out north of 200 ponies. And in case you were wondering, I’m also not sure whether this bike is Italian or Japanese.
What I do know is that the KB998 looks absolutely sick tearing up the corners of the Jerez circuit, and with Alex Lowes and Axel Bassani piloting this thing for the 2025 season, it’ll surely be a force to be reckoned with.
But wait, if you take a look at the entire WSBK grid, you’ll notice something glaring about the KB998, and it’s that it doesn’t have a production counterpart. Pretty much every other bike on the WSBK grid can be purchased straight out of a dealer. I’m sure some of you reading this have a BMW M 1000 RR, Ducati Panigale V4 R, or Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP sitting in your garage. But a Bimota KB998? I highly doubt it.
To that end, Bimota’s eventually going to have to produce and sell this bike to the public in order to comply with the WSBK’s homologation rules. And if the racing series’ rules are to be followed, at least 500 of these bikes will need to be produced and sold to the public.
And so the question remains: what’s the production KB998 going to be like, and what’s it gonna be like to ride on the street? This could very well be the bike that propels Bimota into the mainstream market, putting it in the same league as the superbikes from European and Japanese manufacturers. But at the same time, it could also end up being an ultra-rare race homologation special—a bike that would eventually be a prized piece in superbike aficionados’ collections.
