As motorcycle racing legends go, they don’t get much bigger than Troy Bayliss.
One of the last of the old school, he started racing late in life – deciding it was better to take his road bike to a track than to tear around the streets – and he was an immediate success. The spray painter from Taree, New South Wales, finished second in the 1995 Australian Supersport Championship, before moving to the superbike class and being an immediate threat.
His ride for Suzuki Australia’s team gave him the shop front in which to shine in 1997. He took a pair of fifth places as a wildcard when the Superbike World Championship opened its season up at Phillip Island, impressing not only for the results but also his hard riding of the relatively uncompetitive GSX-R750.
He closed his year at the same venue with a stand out ride at the Australian 250cc Grand Prix. Drafted in as a replacement rider for the injured Noriyasu Numata, he didn’t let his lack of experience on two-stroke Grand Prix bikes hold him back. He stunned with his lines and aggression and battled for the podium, just missing out but equalling the underpowered Suzuki’s best result of the season, sixth, at the flag.
Those results earned him a plum ride in the rapidly growing British Superbike Championship in 1998, setting up a relationship with Ducati – for whom he would race for 10 out of the 11 years of his career as a professional racer.
After winning BSB in 1999, he went off to America in 2000 before being called up to Ducati’s factory world superbike team following Carl Fogarty’s career ending injuries. Three years in WSB brought two titles and a silver medal in 2002, with his battle against Colin Edwards proving one of the most memorable in the history of the championship. The Italian manufacturer moved him to MotoGP when they made their debut in 2004, and he scored four podiums in two years with the factory squad.
He went back to lead Ducati’s charge in WSB in 2006, scoring two more titles before retiring as champion at the end of 2008. On the way, he scored one of the most memorable MotoGP wins of all-time, standing in as a replacement rider at Valencia at the end of 2006 and clearing off to join a select band of riders who have won both a premier class Grand Prix race and a world superbike race.
So it’s no surprise that there’s plenty of buzz around the BSB paddock around Oli Bayliss, Troy’s son, who is currently tearing it up in the Quattro Group British Supersport Championship.
He looks the spitting image of his dad and, like father like son, Oli does most of his talking on the track. After finishing runner-up in the 2020 Australian Supersport Championship as a 16-year-old, he moved to the Aussie superbike championship (on a Ducati, of course) the following season and took a win on his way to fifth overall in the championship. That prompted a move to the Supersport World Championship, with three seasons on a Ducati followed by a switch to the British-run PTR Triumph squad last year.
This year Oli has been combining world supersport duties for PTR with as many rounds of the British series as he is able to do. He’s taken his first podiums in the world series this year, at Phillip Island and Most in the Czech Republic, and joined the Triumph Macadam Factory Racing squad following the unfortunate testing injuries suffered by Bradley Perie in the pre-season.
Having missed the opening two rounds due to clashes with his world championship commitments, Bayliss, now 22, has made an immediate impression in the British paddock. Three rounds have delivered a 100% podium rate, with wins at Knockhill and Snetterton, and an even more impressive double in front of his legendary father last time out at Brands Hatch.
Could Oli Bayliss follow in the tyre tracks of Tarran Mackenzie, by being the second, second generation racer to win a BSB title? Certainly his methodical approach, building session-by-session, has won a lot of praise for the youngster and he is being tipped for a possible BSB seat in 2027.
But for now Oli’s set for a busy end to the 2026 campaign. There are four race weekends left in the world series, and six in BSB – although the final rounds clash. That could leave Oli and his Triumph teams with a dilemma, as there’s every chance he could be in contention to win the British supersport series despite missing those first two rounds.
He currently lies fifth in the points standings, 72 points behind leader Luke Stapleford, but if he continues his sensational form – and elects to go back to Brands Hatch for the finale – there’s still every chance young Oli could be taking an unexpected British title home to Australia come October.
