Our commitment in World Superbike

TotalEnergies and Superbikes

After a long and fruitful collaboration with Kawasaki, highlighted by Jonathan Rea's six world championship titles between 2015 and 2020, TotalEnergies is now working hand in hand with Yamaha Motor Europe in the WSBK and FIM R3 BLU CRU World Cup. In addition to supplying fuel to the two official Yamaha teams competing in WSBK - Pata Maxus Yamaha and GYTR GRT Yamaha - TotalEnergies is also involved in the Blu Cru programme set up by the Japanese manufacturer to teach young riders. As in MotoGP, the fuel supplied in WSBK is 40% renewable, non-fossil. ‘And in the FIM R3 BLU CRU World Cup, we will supply 100% sustainable fuel this year,’ explains Thomas Fritsch, TotalEnergies' technical competition manager. ’It will be the first FIM World Championship to use such fuel.’ TotalEnergies' involvement with Yamaha in WSBK is complementary to its involvement in MotoGP. “We support Yamaha, a major manufacturer, with the aim of transferring new technologies from one competition to another, and beyond to the series,” explains Thomas Fritsch. ’In MotoGP, we are looking for maximum performance for a prototype engine. In WSBK, we work with less powerful, industrially produced engines that run at lower engine speeds and have different tolerances. The fuel formulation has to be less extreme, even if for both competitions, the product supplied is 40% of non-fossil origin.’ Whether for fuel or additives, the engineers from the TotalEnergies group who develop the competition products are the same as those who work on those intended for the series. ‘This is important for facilitating technology transfers,’ insists Thomas Fritsch. ‘We share Yamaha's ambition to move things forward as quickly as possible in order to lower the carbon footprint in the global industrial sector. Our common goal is to develop new technologies that will decarbonise the mobility of tomorrow.’

The stakes

Toprak Razgatlioglu won his first World Superbike Championship title for the German manufacturer last year on his debut with the BMW team. The Turkish rider, who will be crowned in 2021 with Yamaha, dominated the last championship with a string of victories. Now fully confident, he will obviously be the rider to beat again this year. Especially as he is dreaming of one last title before moving up to MotoGP. To do so, he will still have to measure up to the two Ducati riders, Alvaro Bautista, WSBK champion in 2022 and 2023, and Nicolo Bulega, runner-up in 2024. The Spaniard has finally recovered from the injuries that disrupted his start to the season last year, and the Italian intends to continue his progress in what will be his second year in WSBK. Also riding Ducatis, Danilo Petrucci and Andrea Iannone will also be contenders for victory. The two former MotoGP riders are counting on their experience and the performance of their machines to challenge the official riders. With Jonathan Rea, Andrea Locatelli, Remy Gardner and Dominique Aegerter, Yamaha can also hope to get back on the winning path, even if on paper the Japanese manufacturer is still a little behind the European brands, which is also the case for Honda, which is lining up Spaniards Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge in its official structure. For his second season in World Superbike, Sam Lowes is hoping to claim a few podiums with his Ducati in the colours of the Elf Marc VDS Racing team.

Update in March 2025