Nicolò Bulega, superb on the world stage: the ugly duckling has become a swan, a story fit for the movies

If you’re born the son of a dad who races and wins, growing up on a motorcycle is destiny. Nicolò Bulega climbed onto a saddle at four years old and never got off. Now, on the verge of 27, he’s celebrating the most dominant Superbike World Championship ever: 26 wins in 30 races, stuff that not even Carl Fogarty and Troy Bayliss managed, just to name two Ducati legends of the past.

Motorcycle racing moves fast, so few remember Nicolò Bulega’s arrival in the production-derived paddock. He was still very young, just 22, but they already wrote him off. The disappointments suffered in Grand Prix racing had burned him, where he had arrived in 2016 as Valentino Rossi’s natural heir. Not only for his talent, but also for the persona: tall, handsome, long blond hair, exuberant. Nicolò seemed tailor-made, but the sky-high expectations wore down a kid who was physically too big to win on the tiny Moto3 bikes and then became lost once he moved up to Moto2. Few recall that ordeal: in three seasons he finished in supporting roles: 17th, 20th and 26th.

Giving this lost talent a second chance was the brilliant vision of Stefano Cecconi, CEO of the Aruba giant and owner of the squad that runs Ducati’s official activities in the production-derived series. The first Supersport season was like a sort of convalescence: riders don’t just break bones, sometimes they break their soul too. The following year, 2023, the World title fell into his hands as if it were easy, record after record. Moving up to Superbike, he grew in the shadow of the irrepressible 2024 edition of Alvaro Bautista. Then it was his turn: last year he clashed with another tremendous talent, Toprak Razgatlioglu, losing the title in the final race after a frenzied head-to-head that lasted the entire championship. With the Turk out of the picture, Nicolò Bulega steamrolled everyone, winning everything. Only the final seal at Cremona was missing, but who cares: the important thing was to climb onto the world throne, among his people, in an Italian race with an Italian bike. Mission accomplished, for now.

Bulega has spent more than half of this season as a MotoGP rider in pectore. Re-entering the GPs through the front door closed a circle of sorts: he left as a wet chick, he returns with the elegance of a swan. And what’s more, through a strange intertwining of fates and opportunities, he’ll be welcomed back by that same VR46 team that had left him outside the door, like an object you no longer need. This is one of those nemeses that sport often offers us: the kid who almost quits, suffers, comes back to win and becomes stronger than before is a story made for the movies.

A year ago Ducati was determined to keep Nicolò at all costs, even though he had a princely multi-year offer from BMW on the table. The goal of the Bologna-based company was to prepare him for MotoGP, so this triumphant Superbike season, in the end, was just a stepping stone. The grueling tests with the new Pirelli-shod 850, ongoing for several months, are the consequence of the plan. It’s no coincidence that in Cremona, to crown Bulega, the entire Ducati top brass was there: CEO Claudio Domenicali and the racing chief Luigi Dall’Igna. Since his move to MotoGP became official, in fact, Bulega has been a top-class rider in every respect, a valuable piece for the group’s long-range strategies. Nicolò Bulega succeeds Max Biaggi, the first and until today only Italian Superbike world champion. It feels like a passing of the torch.

Will Nicolò Bulega be the first Superbike rider to truly make his mark in MotoGP as well? Pol Espargaro, KTM tester, claims that with all the testing he’s done, he’ll start with such an advantage that he can slice through any rival. Exaggeration. But surely, among all the prestigious predecessors—Edwards, Bayliss, Spies, Razgatlioglu, just to name a few—Nicolò is the one arriving with the strongest credentials. It won’t be a walk in the park, that’s obvious. One data point stands out: Bulega reaches MotoGP at 27 years old (he turns 27 in two weeks). Considering only the other Ducati factory riders, only Marc Marquez (32) and Joan Mir (29) are older. Pedro Acosta is only 22, and he already is what he is. Daniel Holgado and the teammate he’ll find at VR46, Fermin Aldeguer, are 21. But if the talent is there, it’s never too late.

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