The fleet ranking has risen to third place! Zhang Xue: "We can look forward to the champion of the year!"

Recently, we learned from the authorities that the 2026 World Superbike Championship (WSBK) Czech Station concluded the second round of the main race on May 17. In the WorldSSP category (middleweight category) competition, Valentin Derbyshire, a French driver of the Chinese motorcycle manufacturer "Zhang Xue Locomotive", overtook the Yamaha driver, the Turk, on the last lap and won the championship of the two rounds of the competition at this station, and also won the fifth championship for Zhang Xue's team this season! At present, Derbyshire ranks second with 147 points in the driver's championship, and Zhang Xue's locomotive rises to third with 149 points in the team's championship. Zhang Xue said excitedly after the race: "Brothers, we can look forward to the championship of the year!" WSBK has a total of 12 races throughout the year, with the Czech Republic as the 5th race. With a total length of 4.212 kilometers, 21 corners and 10 heavy braking points (heavy braking refers to emergency deceleration with maximum force before the driver enters the corner), the Czech Most Circuit is regarded as the circuit with the most heavy braking points in 12 races. In the first leg of the 16th race in the Czech Republic, Derbyshire won the championship by 0.639 seconds. On the 17th, he started on pole position in the next round, but the competition in the next round was extremely fierce. Derbyshire was overtaken many times and once fell to third. With six laps remaining, Derbyshire and Yamaha's No. 61 driver Enju took turns to take the lead, taking turns to defend, Derbyshire completed the overtake on lap 15 and 16, and kept the advantage to the end to win the championship. Enju said in an interview after the race: "I have done my best, my team is also fully committed, the opponent's car (referring to Zhang Xue locomotive) is a little fast, we still need to continue to work hard. After winning the championship on the 17th, Derbyshire said:" Thank you very much for my team. They improved the car again and I felt very comfortable riding and the lap was very fast today. Thanks to ‘Zhang Xue Locomotive’, thanks to the team. "With Derbyshire winning two rounds in the Czech Republic, there is a new change in the WorldSSP Group Leaderboard! His lead was narrowed to 19 points as Spaniard Arenas, currently the No. 1 Yamaha driver in the drivers' standings, retired in the second leg of the race. In the current drivers' standings, Arenas is No. 1 with 166 points, Derbyshire is No. 2 with 147 points and another Spanish driver, Marcia, is No. 3 with 130 points. Yamaha was No. 1 with 195 points, Ducati was No. 2 with 179 points and Zhang Xue was No. 3 with 149 points. The points rules for the WorldSSP group are: 25 points for the champion, 20 points for the runner-up, 16 points for the third runner-up, and 13 points for the fourth place, decreasing in turn. If Derbyshire can maintain the state of the Czech station, another driver of Zhang Xue's locomotive, Carri Casulo, can better tune the car, and the champion is not just a dream. On May 17, in the social media live booth, when Derbyshire back-to-back won the second championship of the Czech station, there were a large number of "short-lived" and "short-lived one-by-one" comments on the barrage. The reason for the incident was that when Zhang Xue locomotive won the first title in Portugal in March this year, some netizens commented that "it was just a flash, it just happened". Now, Zhang Xue locomotive and Derbyshire have proved that their success is not just a flash, but a strength. Zhang Xue said on social media: "Brothers, the fifth championship, this championship is particularly meaningful, our total points will rise significantly, we can look forward to the annual championship..." The sixth race of the 2026 World Superbike Championship will be held from May 29 to 31 at the Aragon Motor City Circuit in the Aragon Autonomous Region of Spain. The emergence of Zhang Xue locomotive has rewritten the world's middle-class motorcycle competition pattern, which has been valued by traditional fleets such as Yamaha and Ducati. In the second round of the Czech station, several Yamaha racing cars cooperated with each other in the opening stage and blocked the snow tension locomotive. Although this situation has been solved by Derbyshire with personal ability, the potential shown by Zhang Xue's locomotives is enough for traditional teams to make targeted tactical arrangements around them. Due to the delay of another driver of Zhang Xue locomotive, Carri Casulo, Derbyshire had to fight alone most of the time, which was the biggest problem Zhang Xue locomotive faced. When Zhang Xue's locomotive is no longer a dark horse on the track, the future track journey will be more full of variables and challenges. And what Zhang Xue locomotive and his team had to do was to cope with all this with real capabilities.