The 2026 FIM Sidecar World Championship gets under way this coming weekend (17-18 April) at Le Mans in France as part of the famous 24 Heures Motos at the Circuit Bugatti, signalling the start of an intense six-round campaign to decide this unique discipline’s leading competitors.
- 2026 FIM Sidecar World Championship begins in France
- Brothers Sam and Thomas Christie start their title defence
- Big entry to contest opening round at the Circuit Bugatti
Having clinched their debut FIM World Championship crown following a dramatic 2025 title fight, British brothers Sam and Thomas Christie (Yamaha) will be hoping to carry their momentum into the new season with consistency once again being seen as key to a successful campaign.
Last season the Christie brothers were incredibly consistent, finishing all fourteen points-scoring races inside the top five and in the process scoring twelve podium finishes to run out winners by just four points ahead of Swiss rider Markus Schlosser (Yamaha) and his German passenger Luca Schmidt.
Schlosser, the 2021 FIM Sidecar Rider World Champion, topped the podium ahead of the Christie brothers when Le Mans staged last season’s championship opener and the fifty-four-year-old – a veteran of over three decades of sidecar racing – knows a repeat performance, this time with German passenger Lucas Krieg, will lay the foundations for another title challenge.
After finishing third last year, Harrison Payne (ARS Yamaha) from Britain and his French passenger Kevin Rousseau – champions in 2024 – have a point to prove. Speed was never an issue in 2025 and the pair won more races than any other team, but reliability issues proved to be expensive and two retirements – in the second races at Le Mans and Most in the Czech Republic – were costly.
The main opposition to last season’s three leading crews came from seasoned Finnish rider Pekka Päivärinta (ARS Yamaha) and his passenger Adam Christie, the third of the British brothers in action, who scored nine podium finishes including a victory in the opening race on the series’ second visit to Assen.
Päivärinta, a five-time FIM Sidecar Rider World Champion, will once again team up with Christie and the pair have to be considered title contenders this time around, although there is real strength in depth in a field that numbers an impressive twenty-six crews for the opening round.
Back-to-back FIM gold medal winners in 2022 and 2023, the British/French pairing of Todd Ellis (ARS Yamaha) and Emmanuelle Clément were eighth last year after an inconsistent season and return for another attempt at completing their hat-trick of titles, while Britain’s Tim Reeves (ARS Yamaha) – FIM Sidecar Rider World Champion in 2019 – will be hoping to replicate that winning form with new French passenger Mélanie Farnier at his side.
Reeves, with Dutch passenger Ferry Segers, won the opening race at last year’s concluding round at Oschersleben in Germany so there is no question mark concerning his speed, while the British pairing of Lewis Blackstock and Oliver Lawrence (Yamaha) claimed a race podium in race one on the series’ second visit to Assen, their sole championship appearance in 2025.
Other teams expected to score well at Le Mans include, but are not limited to, the French pairing of Paul Leglise (Yamaha) and Marjorie Cescutti who claimed a debut podium together last season at Most.
The opening eleven-lap Sprint race is scheduled to start at 15:35 (local time) on Friday 17 April before the eighteen-lap Main race gets under way the following day at 11:50 (local time).