Nicolò Bulega’s Long Climb from Grand Prix Hope to WorldSBK Champion

Nicolò Bulega’s first WorldSBK crown was decided by a second place at Cremona. The result was enough to make him champion with six races still to run, yet the number on the timing screen tells only the final part of the story. Before Bulega could leave his home round with a world title, he had to find a route back to the professional paddock after a Grand Prix career that had stopped moving in the direction many once expected.

His career has carried the unusual weight of expectation from the start. Bulega rose through the junior ranks with a title, entered Moto3 as a teenager and was spoken of as a future star. The attention brought opportunity and scrutiny together. The later chapters required a different kind of strength: accepting that a path was narrowing, changing disciplines and rebuilding his case through results.

Early promise came with a heavy label

Bulega won the Moto3 Junior World Championship in 2015. He made his full-time Moto3 World Championship debut the following year, taking two podiums and a pole position on his way to seventh in the standings. The next season brought another pole but fewer points, and 2018 ended with him twenty-sixth. The trajectory had become harder to read than the early headlines promised.

The phrase “the next Valentino Rossi” was attached to him while he was still coming through the junior ranks. WorldSBK’s retrospective describes the praise as a source of immediate pressure. That kind of comparison can make ordinary development look like delay. A young rider is still learning how to race at the highest level, while the public has already started measuring him against a champion’s career.

Moto2 narrowed the road

Bulega moved into Moto2 in 2019 with Sky Racing Team VR46 and continued in the class with Gresini in 2020. The results remained difficult to secure. His best finish in the intermediate class was seventeenth, and by the end of 2021 he had finished twenty-sixth in the standings. A career in the Grand Prix paddock that had once appeared to be opening was now close to a decision point.

This part of his history matters because Bulega’s route into WorldSBK crossed an uneven ladder and a crucial discipline change. He had to consider whether a new series could give him a future in professional racing. The move to WorldSSP meant learning a different motorcycle, a different paddock and a different way to demonstrate what he could do. It also placed him on a machine with a clear relationship to Ducati’s production-based programme.

WorldSSP became the second chance

Bulega joined the Aruba.it Racing WorldSSP Team in 2022 as Ducati returned to the category. The first season brought nine podiums without a victory. He stayed with the work and the following year changed the scale of his results. In 2023 he won sixteen races and reached the podium twenty-one times on his way to the WorldSSP championship.

After that title, Bulega said that WorldSSP had been his “last possibility to be a professional rider”. The short line gives the decision a human centre. The move kept his professional career in motion and placed his results back in his own hands. His response was immediate enough to earn a WorldSBK seat for 2024.

The WorldSSP season also gave him a new foundation. Sixteen victories required speed, though a championship asks for more than a fast qualifying lap or a single perfect weekend. Bulega had to deliver repeatedly across a year, learn where the motorcycle could be pushed and convert his experience into points. The title reopened the path to the world’s premier production-based series.

A WorldSBK arrival that delivered quickly

Bulega’s first WorldSBK win came at Phillip Island in 2024, in his debut round. He went on to take six victories in his rookie campaign. The step from Supersport to the larger and more powerful superbike was substantial, yet his adaptation was visible from the first weekend. He had arrived with a championship behind him and immediately showed that the new category suited his strengths.

The 2025 season brought fourteen wins and a title fight that continued to the final race. Bulega finished runner-up. A second place in the standings can be read as a near miss, though it also gave him a stronger base for the next campaign. He had proved that his first-year impact was durable and that he could remain in contention across a full WorldSBK season.

2026 turned consistency into history

Bulega entered 2026 after two runner-up finishes and became the central figure in the championship. WorldSBK’s season retrospective recorded twenty-three wins across the first eight rounds, alongside a run of twenty-one consecutive victories. Those numbers describe more than a fast motorcycle. They show how often he and the Aruba.it Racing Ducati team could turn a weekend’s preparation into a result under race pressure.

The Cremona weekend then supplied the final answer. Lecuona won Race 1 and the Superpole Race, while Bulega stayed in the title calculation. For Race 2, Bulega needed only to finish inside the top five. He took second behind Lecuona, and the points were enough to secure the championship six races before the season ended.

That finish gave the title a fitting measure of control. A risky move for one more race win would have added little to the championship calculation. Bulega concentrated on bringing the motorcycle home among the leading places, and he did. The title arrived through the same qualities that had defined the season: pace, focus and an ability to complete the task in front of him.

The celebration belonged to a whole paddock

The official WorldSBK photographs from Cremona show the champion moving from the podium towards the people who carried the season with him. The images make visible what a points total cannot. A rider can cross the line alone, but a championship is built through a team that prepares the motorcycle, reads the data and helps the rider reset after every session.

Bulega grew up around the WorldSSP paddock, where his father had a team, and has spoken about watching riders such as Troy Bayliss, Noriyuki Haga and Troy Corser. That detail brings his title back to its beginning. Cremona gave his story an unusually close return: a round in the championship environment he had known since childhood, now reached as its leading rider.

A title and a fresh starting point

The title changes Bulega’s place in the record book. The season still has six races across Estoril and Jerez, giving the champion a chance to ride without the points arithmetic that shaped the final weeks and giving his rivals another opportunity to measure themselves against him. Lecuona’s three Cremona wins make him an especially interesting figure in that closing stretch.

For Bulega, the larger achievement is the path itself. He moved from junior champion to Moto3 prospect, through a difficult Moto2 period, into a new life in WorldSSP and then to the top of WorldSBK. Each stage required a fresh result and a decision to continue. His 2026 title gives the final chapter its shine, while the seasons before it explain why the moment carried so much meaning.