The long winter period may be in full swing but there is still time to look back at the 2023 WorldSBK Championship season as BSN brings you our rundown of the Top 10 WorldSBK Riders of the Year.

Up in fourth place is Jonathan Rea in his final season with Kawasaki

Kicking off the top three is independent champion Axel Bassani…

While we’ve certainly grown accustomed to seeing Axel Bassani mixing it with the WorldSBK elite over the past three seasons, even now it doesn’t diminish the gravity of his giant-killing efforts on the Motocorsa Racing-prepared Ducati Panigale V4 R.

Indeed, the quality machinery beneath the Italian notwithstanding, there remains a sizeable gulf between the resource and development that goes into his Ducati compared to that of factory representative Michael Ruben Rinaldi, or even Danilo Petrucci and Philipp Oettl on the satellite Barni and Go Eleven variants.

Despite this, Bassani continued to wring every ounce of performance from it in 2023, his crowd-pleasing blend of aggression and precision regularly catching rivals unawares at the head of the pack.

Spending the season locked in a (very) personal tussle with Rinaldi for what would become fifth in the overall standings, by rights Bassani deserved it over his countryman, showcasing a greater level of consistency that would see him reach the flag in 34 of the season’s 36 races.

It’s ironic then that his first DNF of the year in the Jerez finale came at the hands of his foe in Rinaldi, giving the Aruba man the nod over his rival in the fight for fifth, though in reality it was the Motocorsa rider’s dip in form during the final stages of the year that were more responsible.

Even so, two podiums brought his career tally up to six, the highlight being run to second place at Imola, a dogged performance headlined by a terrific tussle with Toprak Razgatlioglu for honours on the way.

Quite why Bassani never got a look in for a factory Ducati ride is anyone’s guess, but Bassani will at least fulfil his dream of a factory seat for 2024 at Kawasaki. While he faces a challenge to adapt to an inline-four configuration on a machine not exactly in the first flush of youth, this is Bassani chance to prove he is a firm member among the WorldSBK elite.

BSN’s Top 10 WorldSBK Riders of 2023

4 - Jonathan Rea

5 - Danilo Petrucci

6 - Andrea Locatelli

7 - Michael Ruben Rinaldi

8 - Garrett Gerloff

9 - Dominique Aegerter

10 - Alex Lowes