The Axel Bassani we interviewed in Jerez is very different from the one we knew when he raced for Team Motocorsa.

The two years he spent first with Kawasaki and then with Bimota, albeit with the same team, have helped him grow. Although, at least until now, he has achieved his best results with Lorenzo Mauri's Ducati, it was probably the difficulties he faced that helped him grow and mature, as well as the fact that he was able to work with one of the best teams in WorldSBK. The Roda brothers' team does not put pressure on him, but as he himself says, ‘official riders have to win,’ and so he is the first to suffer from the current situation, with important results failing to materialise.

Compared to the feeling he had with the Kawasaki, the one with the Bimota is certainly superior, partly because the Italian-Japanese bike has a chassis and suspension that work very well. So what is the KB998 missing to be higher up? The engine, the power.

As Axel explains in this interview, the engine that powers his bike is the one used by Jonathan Rea, who, coincidentally, complained about the lack of power available to him. The situation has not changed, but there is always hope that Akashi will prepare a more generous engine than the current one.