Former WorldSBK champion team set for move to Chinese brand for 2027

The partnership between Yamaha and Ten Kate has come to an end, the Japanese manufacturer has confirmed.

Ten Kate is perhaps still best known for its success with Honda, winning nine World Supersport titles between 2002 and 2014 with the CBR600RR.

It was also with Honda that Ten Kate’s sole WorldSBK title came, in 2007 with the CBR1000RR in the hands of James Toseland.

But when Honda decided to return to WorldSBK as a full factory team in 2020, Ten Kate was left out of its plans. 

A move to Yamaha came in 2019 as a result, with a sole entry in Superbike for Loris Baz, while it won the 2021 and 2022 Supersport championships with Dominique Aegerter.

A third Yamaha title came in 2025 in the first year of the YZF-R9 in Supersport, that championship won by Stefano Manzi.

The R9 won again this year but in the hands of AS Racing’s Albert Arenas, while Ten Kate’s Can Oncu finished down in fourth in the standings, beaten to third by Jeremy Alcoba at the final round.

The partnership is over, Yamaha has confirmed – Ten Kate has chosen to leave Yamaha and reports from GPOne earlier this month indicate that the Dutch team’s new manufacturer will be QJ Motor.

“We would like to thank Ten Kate for everything over the past eight seasons,” said Andrea Dosoli, Yamaha Motor Europe’s division manager for motorsport.

“Their record in the Supersport World Championship spoke for itself before they joined Yamaha in 2019, and adding three World Championship titles to the tally has contributed towards Yamaha becoming the most successful manufacturer in WorldSSP history. 

“We are disappointed to see them choose a new direction for 2027 but must thank Ronald and Gerrit Ten Kate and their team for all their efforts over the past eight years.”

QJ Motor was one of the first Chinese brands to commit to racing in the WorldSBK paddock when it entered the Supersport class in 2024. 

However, it was immediately out-performed this year by ZX Moto, which debuted in the championship in 2026 and finished second in the standings with Valentin Debise. By comparison, QJ Motor hasn’t yet finished on a podium in World Supersport.

When ZX Moto came into Supersport this season, it did so by partnering with the Evan Bros team, one of the strongest and best-established in the championship having won world titles in the past with Yamaha.

QJ, on the other hand, has been a kind of side project for Manuel Puccetti, whose team still runs the Kawasaki ZX-6R machine that Jeremy Alcoba used to take third in the standings.

Collaborating with Ten Kate would put QJ Motor’s Supersport programme in the hands of the most successful team in World Supersport, although it remains to be seen if the bike itself – the SRK800RS – has the technical ingredients to compete at the front of the championship.