Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) and teammate Iker Lecuona put on a show in the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship at the Autodrom Most with an epic battle for the win in the Czech Round. It was the #11 who came out on top, but he was made to work incredibly hard for his 13^th win of the 2026 season and his 17^th in a row, with Lecuona forced to settle for second.

Bulega had an early advantage over Lecuona by getting a good start from pole position, running in P1 while Lecuona was stuck in third place behind Yari Montella (Barni Spark Racing Team), who once again was in the podium fight. Lecuona got ahead of the #5 on Lap 4 and was only half-a-second behind the #11. He quickly closed that gap down to just 0.202s at the end of Lap 6, and 0.188s at the end of Lap 7, although Bulega was quicker in some areas.

With 8 laps to go, on Lap 14, Bulega made an error at Turn 1 as Lecuona showed a wheel on the inside, with the #11 running wide although he was able to keep his position. A lap later, at the same corner, Lecuona was able to make the move under heavy braking at Turn 1, claiming the lead of the race. Initially, Lecuona pulled out a gap over Bulega to 0.285s by the end of Lap 18.

However, a lap later, and the gap had come down dramatically. By Turn 15, Bulega was alongside the Spanish rider and made his move, although Lecuona admirably defended around the outside of Turn 16. However, Bulega was now close enough to make a move into Turn 1 on the following lap and duly did so, getting up the inside of his teammate and defending through Turn 2 before pulling out a gap and controlling the remaining three laps to take his 17^th consecutive win.

Reflecting on the battle, Bulega said: “It was a very tough race, Iker was very strong. Honestly, I wasn’t at 100% with the bike. I missed some feeling, especially in the small corners. I had a very small problem with the front brake, and this track is very critical for brakes. We have to check and put it all together for tomorrow. We had a great battle; I enjoyed it a lot. In the last three laps, when I overtook him, I tried to forget the small problems I had, make my pace, be fast and put some gap between me and him.”

Lecuona added: “I’m really happy because at least I tried in the race. We had really good pace, much faster than I expected; even Nicolo said we were really, really fast. It was difficult to overtake because we have the same bike, but with different riding styles. The main problem for me is I had to push a bit too much in the first three laps to recover that almost second to Nicolo, and then I struggled in the last few laps with the tyre. I almost crashed twice because I tried to catch Nicolo for the last lap, and on the last lap, I said after almost crashing twice that it’s good to finish second. It’s the first time we battled in the race.”

When asked if this was his best WorldSBK ride to date, Lecuona replied: “100%! Our performance was really good, and the pace surprised us a bit. Yesterday, I struggled a little bit. In Superpole, I excepted more but I didn’t do the perfect lap so P3 was good. Tomorrow, we have two more chances to try to beat Nicolo.”

Will Lecuona be able to get one up on his teammate tomorrow? Find out using the WorldSBK VideoPass – now 30% off!