Sven Verbrugge joined the sidecarcross world championship in 1993 as the passenger of his countryman Gunther Gooverts, whom he raced with quite successfully for four seasons.

In 1995, an ankle injury prevented him for three month from taking part in most of the season but the year after the pair returned with a sixth place overall finish.

After a short stint with Peter Steegmans he returned to Daniël Willemsen for a second time and the pair finished second overall in the 2000 and 2001 world championship.

The pair dominated the early part of the season but an injury to Willemsen forced them to miss three events and a lack of good form upon return caused them to finish only fifth in the world championship.

[2] After riding with fellow Belgian Peter Steegmans in 2010, Verbrugge started once more with Willemsen in 2011, after an injury to first-choice passenger Roman Vasyliaka.

Willemsen and his passenger clinched the World Championship at the second-last race of the season, at Slagelse, Denmark, having a 53-point lead over Latvians Jānis and Lauris Daiders at the time.