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Nicolò Bulega won all three WorldSBK races in Portugal, taking his 2026 tally to 29 victories and 664 points. Rookie Alberto Surra matched the moment with a podium in every race at Estoril, including a hard-fought third in Sunday’s finale.
Photograph: WorldSBK official mediaNicolò Bulega arrived at Estoril with the WorldSBK title already secured. Three races later, the champion had given the season two more records and a perfect weekend. He won Race 1, the Superpole Race and Race 2, taking his 2026 total to 29 victories and his points score to 664. Behind him, rookie Alberto Surra made the Portuguese round his own too, finishing third in all three races.
The results gave the penultimate round a curious balance. The riders’ title had been settled at Cremona, so Bulega was free of the arithmetic that had shaped the final weekends. The records were still waiting. He came to Estoril level with the single-season win mark of 27, set by Álvaro Bautista in 2023, and within reach of Jonathan Rea’s 663-point benchmark from 2019.
That left the champion with a different sort of pressure. There was no title to clinch and no need to calculate what a rival might do. Every start still mattered, because the first record could arrive on Saturday, while the points mark would require the full weekend. Bulega’s task was to keep converting speed into results across three formats: the feature race, the short Superpole Race and the final 21-lap contest. Estoril made him answer each one in turn.
Bulega made his record-equalling 27th win in Saturday’s Race 1. He had dropped to third at the opening turn, worked his way back past Alex Lowes and then took the lead from Iker Lecuona on the following lap. A new race lap record helped him build a margin. Lecuona finished second, with Surra taking his second WorldSBK podium in three races.
The opening exchange put the result briefly in Lecuona’s hands. He outbraked his teammate at Turn 1, while Bulega’s attempt to hold the outside line allowed Alex Lowes through as well. The champion was third. By the start of Lap 2 he had recovered second, and a lap later he made another move at Turn 1 to take the lead. His 1:34.964 lap became a new race record, then the gap began to grow. The recovery was clean and quick, the kind of sequence that leaves little room for anyone else to settle into a rhythm.
Lecuona’s second place gave Aruba.it Racing Ducati a one-two, while Surra held third with Oliveira closing behind him. The rookie opened a gap of 1.6 seconds over the home rider in the second half of the race. It was his second WorldSBK podium in three races and his first in a feature-length contest. The result set up a Sunday in which the champion’s records would draw the headlines, while Surra had a chance to show that his first rostrum was no isolated afternoon.
Sunday morning took Bulega beyond the old win mark. He won the Superpole Race ahead of Lecuona, while Surra came through late to deny home rider Miguel Oliveira the final podium place. It was the kind of short race in which a single mistake can rearrange the order. Surra had to recover after falling back from the front group, then found a way past Oliveira on the final lap.
Lecuona made the stronger launch in the Superpole Race and led at Turn 1. On Lap 3 he ran wide under braking, opening the door for Bulega to take over. The champion used the breathing room to claim win number 28 and move beyond Bautista’s season record. Surra’s race ran on a smaller margin. He fell to fifth on Lap 2, recovered the position and spent the closing stages catching Oliveira. A late mistake from the Portuguese rider gave Surra the opening he needed to take third, turning Estoril’s home crowd into a direct part of the duel.
The afternoon’s 21-lap Race 2 began with Lecuona taking the lead. Bulega answered at Turn 6 on the opening lap and immediately started to stretch the gap. His fastest lap, a 1:34.696, became the pace marker for the race. Lecuona held second, but the lead grew to 4.888 seconds at the finish. The Ducati rider had turned a tight opening exchange into a controlled run to the flag.
The margin did not appear all at once. Lecuona stayed within half a second during the early laps, then Bulega’s 1:34.696 began to give him breathing space. The #11 set the pace at the front and kept the second Ducati behind, while the fight for third continued several seconds further back. The chequered flag came after 21 laps with Bulega 4.888 seconds clear. That final win carried its own weight: it was the race that took him beyond Rea’s points record as well as the season’s win mark.
The Race 2 win took Bulega to 29 victories for the season, two beyond Bautista’s previous single-year record. It also gave him the 25 points needed to reach 664, one more than Rea’s best single-season total. The record has a certain neatness to it. Rea set the old benchmark in 2019, a season in which he also claimed the highest podium count then recorded. Bulega now has 33 rostrums with three races remaining.
The treble also made Estoril Bulega’s ninth hat-trick of the year, another single-season high. Those numbers describe more than a champion collecting points after the title is safe. He has repeatedly arrived at Sunday afternoon with the opportunity to win the whole round, then delivered across all three races. Bautista’s 27 wins in 2023 had been the number every new campaign was measured against. Bulega has moved the target to 29, with Jerez still to come.
That leaves one more number worth watching at Jerez. Rea’s 34 podiums in a season remain the mark to beat. Bulega has already done enough to make his campaign the most productive by wins and points, and a final podium would bring him level. The title itself is no longer in question. The closing races are a chance to see how far the champion can extend a season that has already moved beyond the old reference points.
The scale of the points record is easy to miss beside the win total. Bulega’s 664 came from a 62-point haul in Portugal, with three races still to run. Rea’s previous 663 had stood since 2019. Bulega has now passed both his win and points totals, while the podium record remains just one result away. Jerez offers a final measure of how complete the season can become, even when the championship itself has already been decided.
Surra’s story was less about a number on a record sheet and more about learning how quickly an opportunity can disappear. He finished third in Race 1, then repeated the result in the Superpole Race after a late duel with Oliveira. He returned to the podium in Race 2, making the Estoril round his strongest of the season so far.
The Italian had arrived with a first podium from Cremona and left Estoril with three more. In Race 1 he passed Lowes and held third through the second half, despite Oliveira closing to within a second. In the Superpole Race he had to recover after slipping back, then finished the job with a late pass on the home rider. Each result came through a different shape of race. Together they made the weekend a proper step forward for a rookie still learning the championship.
The final race asked for patience. Surra held third while Bautista challenged, then ran wide at Turn 1 on lap 13 and lost the position. He responded at Turn 6, but Bautista was still in front when the race moved towards its final stages. A crash for the two-time champion at Turn 1 on lap 17 promoted Surra back into the podium places.
Bautista’s crash changed the final order, and Surra’s third in Race 2 came after the two-time champion fell from a podium position. The context should stay with the result. Surra had already finished third on Saturday and won a close fight with Oliveira on Sunday morning, then was still in contention after Bautista passed him in the afternoon. The crash returned him to the rostrum, while the pace across the weekend made his three podiums feel like more than a fortunate sequence.
The weekend raised the young Italian’s podium total from one to four. He now shares that count with Oliveira, another rookie who has made a quick impression on the production-based championship. Surra’s route to those results has been unusually steep: a first rostrum at Cremona, then three in a single Estoril round. The numbers are small beside Bulega’s records, but they give the season finale a second story worth following.
The result also gave the last round a different shape. Bulega will go to Jerez as champion, with the wins record already in his hands and the single-season points mark already surpassed. Surra has another chance to build on his progress. The fight for third in the championship remains open, with Yari Montella carrying a 53-point advantage over Alex Lowes after Estoril and securing the Best Independent Rider title.
Montella has already secured the Best Independent Rider award, and he heads to Jerez with 53 points over Alex Lowes in the fight for third overall. Sam Lowes is a further 65 points behind Montella and can no longer reach that position. The last round offers 62 points, enough to keep the bronze place alive for two riders and to give Surra another chance to test himself against the established names. Estoril has left the finale with multiple story still moving.
WorldSBK will return to Jerez from 16 to 18 October for the season finale. Estoril has made the names at the top of the record book look different. The final three races can still add a line or two, and they will give the rest of the field one more chance to meet Bulega’s pace on equal terms. For now, the champion leaves Portugal with all three wins, a new points record and a weekend that belonged to him and the young rider who kept appearing beside him on the podium.
| Position | Rider | Team |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nicolò Bulega | Aruba.it Racing - Ducati |
| 2 | Iker Lecuona | Aruba.it Racing - Ducati |
| 3 | Alberto Surra | Motocorsa Racing |
