It's not long ago that Chinese supersport motorcycles were seen more as a joke than real competition to established brands. To some folks, things are still that way. But it's going to be difficult to discount them quite as much, now that ZXMOTO has officially won a WorldSSP race. That means it's capable of beating out the best supersport machines in the world; or at least, what were the very best. Now, they have company in the form of the 820RR-R/820RR-RS.
The Chinese manufacturer, which was founded in 2024, is on a meteoric rise in the motorcycle industry. It's not hard to see why, either, since Zhang Xue founded it. For those unfamiliar, he's the very same man who founded KOVE in 2017. His new company ZXMOTO first revealed itself to the public at EICMA in 2025 with a six-bike lineup, and the flagship model was the 820RR-R/820RR-RS.
Aboard a race-spec 820RR-RS, Valentin Debise took victory in Race 1 and Race 2 at the World Superbike Championship (WSBK) in Portimao. That makes ZXMOTO the first Chinese brand to ever win a race in WSBK, which is impressive in its own right, but there's more.
