All the main Japanese manufacturers have won the title for themselves along the way. Kawasaki has earned the Manufacturers’ title three times in all.
In the Riders’ Championship Kawasaki competitors have scored top spot - in 2001 with Andrew Pitt before Kenan Sofuoglu won the title for Kawasaki in 2012, 2015 and most recently in 2016.
The first Kawasaki race win in the full FIM WorldSSP championship was the first race of the 1999 season itself, with British rider Iain Macpherson scoring full points at Kyalami in South Africa. Andrew Pitt, Fabien Foret, Joan Lascorz, Broc Parkes, Randy Krummenacher, Lucas Mahias and privateer Rafaelle de Rosa have also posted race wins on the middleweight Ninja. Kawasaki has now scored 45 individual race wins since 1999.
Kawasaki riders scored 14 podium places - including De Rosa’s famous final round race win - in the 2021 WorldSSP championship, which was the last in its long-standing format before a new era will be introduced in 2022.
A wide array of engine capacities and formats are now allowed in WorldSSP but all must remain largely as standard, with engine tuning, peak revs and other performance parameters tightly regulated and constantly reviewed. A proven winning package in WorldSSP the Ninja ZX-6R will be run by the long-standing Kawasaki Puccetti Racing team, with exciting new entries by the MTM Kawasaki and Prodina Racing teams. The latter two teams are moving up from the WorldSSP300 class, with exciting talents Adrian Huertas (the 2021 WorldSSP300 champion for Kawasaki) and Tom Booth-Amos joining the class.