Phillip Island, Race 1: Bulega untouchable as Ducati dominates the World Championship

Phillip Island is Nicolò Bulega’s backyard: the start of the ’26 World Championship was no contest, a fourth consecutive win on this track with the Ducati that devoured everything, firing the fantastic privateers Yari Montella and Lorenzo Baldassarri onto the podium as well.

Last year Toprak Razgatlioglu thundered against the superiority of the old Panigale on this track. Who knows what he would have said in the face of the dominance of the new version. With the double-sided swingarm, and despite few winter tests, it did even better, also taking advantage of the absence of the Turk who, after winning the title, jumped to the top class.

Detractors will say he’s winning against no one, but Nicolò Bulega’s record speaks for itself: in 73 Superbike races he’s finished on the podium 57 times. In Toprak’s absence, honestly it’s hard to see anyone on the horizon who could give him trouble between now and Jerez next October. The season opener went smooth as silk: bike number 11 rocketed away from Superpole and the rivals only saw it again in parc fermé.

A year ago he crashed, squandering the surprise effect. This time Yari Montella was perfect, bringing smiles to the Barni team. He’s always been fast here, even in his Supersport days, but his growth—mental too—has been exponential; this is a stellar second place. And what about Lorenzo Baldassarri’s feat? Few believed it, yet the rider from Romagna climbed onto Andrea Iannone’s former Ducati and, without any dry testing in Australia, he was sensational. A podium on debut is a big-league achievement. Go Eleven closed the book on two tense years with Iannone in the best possible way: who would have thought?

Bimota went well in testing and in practice too, but when it came down to it, they lacked the speed and potential to withstand the onslaught of the Panigales, even the satellite ones. Axel Bassani, however, was superb; the Venetian rediscovered the sparkle he had in his Ducati days, missing the podium by thousandths. At Phillip Island, doing better than teammate Alex Lowes—an ex-winner here—is a very positive sign looking ahead.

This isn’t a BMW track, but even so Razgatlioglu’s mail-out start was too bad to be true. Miguel Oliveira, starting from the back, climbed to eighth, but he took twenty seconds from the winner. Even worse for Danilo Petrucci, who still hasn’t found the thread of the skein. Yamaha, despite technical concessions, plummeted with Andrea Locatelli only thirteenth. Xavi Vierge was going a bit better, but he shot himself off at the very fast turn three, risking contact with the far-off marshal post at the next corner. Rider unhurt, but what luck. Red card for Alvaro Bautista, who crashed at the start, and yellow for Iker Lecuona, who replaced his countryman on the factory Ducati. He finished sixth, but twelve seconds behind Bulega is a very heavy deficit.

Bad news for the rivals: the Australian weekend has only just begun, and Nicolò Bulega still has two aces to play for the full-haul objective. The Superpole Race (10 laps) will run on Sunday, February 22 at 1:00 p.m. local time, 3:00 a.m. in Italy. Race 2 will start at 4:00 p.m., 6:00 a.m. in our country.