From BMW’s first world championship title to Ducati’s 1100 Superbike podium – the last season of the series-running world championship produced some impressive figures.
The list of notable events for the 2024 World Superbike Championship starts with the smallest number ‹1›. Nicolò Bulega’s (Ducati) Superpole victory in Estoril by just 0.003 seconds over Toprak Razgatlioglu (BMW) was the closest finish in the history of the World Superbike Championship.
With BMW’s first victory and his second victory, Toprak Razgatlioglu was the best driver of last season. The Turk achieved 18 victories and 27 podiums in the 30 races in which he participated. In contrast, Álvaro Bautista had his worst season with Ducati with four wins. The Spaniard had scored at least 16 (!) with the V4R.
Razgatlioglu set a record with 13 consecutive wins. The BMW star beat the previous record set by Jonathan Rea and Bautista by two. And the two-time world champion is now fourth on the all-time list with a total of 57 Superbike wins. He is only two wins short of the great Carl Fogarty.
Ducati riders Sam Lowes and Bautista “made it” with 17 crashes throughout the season.
Alex Lowes achieved Kawasaki’s 550th podium finish in the SBK category at the race in Portimão.
As befits his status, the world champion completed the most laps in the lead. Although Razgatlioglu missed six races due to injury, his 248 is almost double that of Bulega as the runner-up.
And who drove the most laps in 2024? It was Michael van der Mark who completed 578 of a possible 593 laps. A significant increase compared to two years ago, when the BMW driver was completely injured and completed only 310 and 318 laps.
Ducati achieved twice as many Superbike podiums as Kawasaki and Bautista’s second place in the Superpole race at Magny-Cours – it was the 1100th podium for the Italian manufacturer.
