It’s sort of like playing telephone: We saw it on Asphalt & Rubber, who heard it from German magazine Speedweek. Supposedly, Kawasaki is working on a new ZX-10 for 2016.
The reason for this supposed update? When World Superbike updated their rulebook a while back, restricting the amount of modifications a race team could make to a production bike, the teams realized their motorcycles had to come ready to race from the factory.
As a result, we’ve seen superbikes get even more super in the past few months, particularly with the Euro factories releasing upscale models of their already-impressive flagship models. So, if Kawasaki wants to win in WSB (where they’ve been a dominant team for some time now), they’ve got to re-arm to stay in the game. Or war. Does that metaphor work?
It would be very interesting to see where Kawasaki takes an upgraded ZX-10. The supercharged H2R stole a lot of attention away from Kawasaki’s existing Ninja lineup. The ZX-10 will not likely match the raw horsepower of the H2R, but we’re sure to see more power and more electronic riding aids to help control that power – such is the state of superbikes today.
