The 2026 EICMA Italian Round will be remembered for a long time. A Champion was crowned in the form of Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati), taking a MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship title before he heads to MotoGP, while there was also a maiden hat-trick for teammate Iker Lecuona. With the track action wrapped up from the Cremona Circuit, we’ve gathered the best debriefs from Italy…
“WHEN YOU CAN WIN THE TITLE IN ITALY, WITH DUCATI, THE FIRST ITALIAN TO WIN A TITLE WITH DUCATI… YOU CANNOT RIDE AT 100%”
An emotional Bulega reflected on his Championship, saying: “The first time I saw how many laps were left, it was 16. When I saw 16 laps to go, I said, ‘How is it possible to do 16 more laps?’. I made a lot of mistakes. It was a bad race, but Iker was incredibly fast. I tried to use him at the beginning to escape from the other guys, but the target was the Championship. When you can win the title in Italy, with Ducati, the first Italian to win a title with Ducati, you see I don’t know how many people who are here for you, you cannot ride at 100% naturally. A lot of things were in my mind at the end of the race. After the chequered flag, I started to cry. A lot of riders came to congratulate me, which was a nice moment. Then I went to Turn 5, with all my friends, to celebrate the title. It was fantastic. Before the race, I was thinking about not making mistakes. I was thinking about going 90%, not doing anything more. Maybe I still don’t realise what’s happened, but when I was young my dad had a team in WorldSSP. I learnt in this paddock. When I was 4, 5, 6, 7 years old, I was just a child inside this paddock, watching Bayliss, Haga and all these incredible riders. Now, several years later, I’m the World Champion. It’s an incredible story.
“THE CHERRY ON THE CAKE IS A RIDER LIKE NICOLO, WHO TAKES ALL OF THIS AND HAS A SEASON WHICH IS UNBELIEVABLE”
Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali was full of praise of the work from both Bulega and Ducati: “Winning’s always very sweet, particularly for Ducati in WorldSBK. It’s part of our DNA. The important point is that we don’t have to talk about the past. If you do it now, it means we continue to be able to develop our own motorcycle as a fantastic starting base, and this guy (acknowledging Gigi Dall’Igna) can take it and transform it into a fantastic racing machine. Then the cherry on the cake is a rider like Nicolo, who takes all of this and has a season which is unbelievable. I've never seen something like that! We had very good years in 2022 and 2023, then 2024 was more complicated. In 2025, we fought until the end. This year was relevant because we had a completely new motorcycle. Being able to prove that the development we did on the Panigale was effective was very important. Bulega’s story is fantastic. I’m not sure we can say it’s closure because Nicolo still very young, and we have him working with us in MotoGP. It’s not closure, it’s a fantastic milestone and a very nice comeback.”
“HIS MIND IS REALLY STRONG RIGHT NOW. IT’S NOT LIKE IN THE PAST. HE LEARNT FROM HIS EXPERIENCE IN PREVIOUS YEARS”
Ducati Corse General Manager, Gigi Dall’Igna, explained what it meant to have an Italian rider win on an Italian bike: “We changed quite a lot on the bike from the previous season, and this means the evolution we made worked very well. In the end, it’s a combination between the job from the racing department and the street bike department. We worked together since the beginning of this bike. In the end, we did a great job. Winning with an Italian rider, for an Italian brand like Ducati, is really important. We have to create a World Champion in Italy with Max Biaggi and, of course, Nicolo Bulega. I think the speed in the middle of the corner is the riding phase where Nicolo gives the most, but his mind is really strong right now. It’s not like in the past. He learnt quite a bit from his experience in the previous years.”
“THREE WINS IS SO NICE TO FEEL… I JOIN THE HAT-TRICK GROUP”
It was a memorable weekend for Lecuona too, who claimed a first hat-trick: “I'm just very happy. I said Friday that I will find something on the bike, and with cold conditions, hot conditions, windy conditions… every time that I jump on the bike, I feel very comfortable. Three wins is so nice to feel. Zero mistakes. The first 29.0, I do it easier because I roll off because I already had two or three seconds to Nicolo. And then just riding 28.9, many laps consecutively are quite easy for me because I'm very comfortable on the bike, so I had my reference, my margin to not have a stupid crash, to not make any mistake, and just keeping the pace to win. The bike changed a lot, my level has increased every race, every time I jump on the bike, I learn something. Also to have Nicolo as a teammate, even this weekend when he struggled, I checked his data to learn a few corners that he's better than me, to improve that point, to try to be even stronger than him. I felt 100% with the bike. I know Nicolo’s aim was to win the Championship, but even without that, I think Nicolo was faster than me during the season, but I think this weekend was the opposite. I join the hat-trick group, that's nice.”
“I COMPLETELY USED EVERYTHING WE HAD UNDERNEATH US”
Jake Dixon (Honda HRC) capped off Honda’s best weekend of 2026 with a P6 finish in Race 2. He said: “It was really good. I said on Saturday we just needed to get a better grid position to put ourselves in a better position. I was fortunate in the Superpole Race that I was able to get ninth. I completely used everything we had underneath us. It feels like quite a big win considering what Honda’s been able to do this year. They’re working hard in the background to understand how we can move forward. I got a bit lucky in the sense that some people went down, realistically we were probably seventh or eighth. We overachieved on Sunday. The test team have been testing a lot. I know they’re out in the next week or so, just trying to go through some things that I have to wait for. Jonny’s working hard, doing a really good job, and the UK test team are doing an amazing job, and also in Japan they’re doing a really good job. Jonny texted me a minute ago, saying it was a really good job and to go step by step. He’s been quite hard on them, which is good, because the only way we’ll get stuff done is by being hard and direct.”
“FROM NOW TO THE END OF THE SEASON, OR NEXT YEAR, SURRA’S GOING TO BE A BIG RIVAL”
From two crashes on Friday and two more on Saturday to a rostrum on Sunday for Yari Montella (Barni Spark Racing Team), who said: “After Friday and Saturday, it was not easy on Sunday. In the morning I woke up and I said, ‘Hey, we need to reset because we are fighting for third place in the Championship and we cannot make a lot of mistakes’. The difficult part of the season is now, so we need to fight. And I think today we fought a lot because I used the Superpole Race to refine again the feeling with the bike and I was fighting for a podium. In Race 2, the goal was the podium. And when I had the chance, I said, ‘Okay, now I do my pace, and I try to do my best’. Really, really happy with the job that we did this weekend and also for me, also for the team, we did a great job. I think I had more pace than Surra this afternoon. This morning I tried to overtake him, but he overtook me again and I lost my chance to get on the podium. In Race 2, I was riding really smooth because it's a slippery track, it was hotter than Saturday and I think also how we used the tyre gave us the chance to take the podium today. In the end, I think also for Bulega, because he won the Championship. We are a lot of Italians that are fighting for something big, you know. Surra this weekend had something more, I think, on us, because he was probably faster. But I know that from now to the end of the season, or for sure next year, Surra’s going to be a big rival. Like always, I don't know if we're going to take the third place in the Championship in Estoril, but for sure, the goal is to finish in third place this year.”
Watch the final two rounds of the 2026 campaign in style using the WorldSBK VideoPass – now only €9.99!