SBK Cremona: Bulega plays his trump card for the Sprint, but Lecuona is ruthless and delays the celebrations

Nicolò Bulega played his ace to try and win the Sprint: he started on a qualifying tire, aiming to shake things up. But Iker Lecuona, with the more conservative choice (SCX), gave him no chance: Cremona became his domain. Nicolò’s World Championship party is postponed to the afternoon.

The Spaniard thus takes his third win of the year, after devouring Saturday’s appetizer with overwhelming superiority. Bulega didn’t go looking for trouble this time either: on the second lap, building momentum on the straight, he stuck his nose ahead, but Iker immediately struck back, diving into the “hole” of the final corner like there was no tomorrow. The Ducati riders’ duel ended there. Now the gap between the two is 138 points, so Bulega becomes champion in the afternoon even by finishing fourth, if Lecuona wins. So, with this World Title served on a silver platter, the only question is whether the Italian will risk more to celebrate from the top step of the podium.

Bulega is drawing all the attention, but right behind him Alberto Surra is coming on brilliantly, and at just 22 years old, on his World Championship debut, he christens his first time on the podium. “It’ll take two years,” Lorenzo Mauri, owner of Motocorsa, said some time ago. Instead, on his home track, the excellent Alberto beat the timetable. He could have hit the target the day before, but a slide sent everything up in smoke. Even if the parties involved won’t confirm it, Surra had the chance to sample the factory Panigale V4R, although the Aruba team then preferred to play it safe, namely bringing in Franco Morbidelli, edged out of MotoGP and the “sacrificial victim” in the swap with Nicolò Bulega. In any case, next year Alberto Surra will have the chance to reap rewards with Motocorsa as well, which has a great bike and a top-team organization, and in the past launched Axel Bassani into orbit, now a factory Bimota rider. Yari Montella and Sam Lowes completed the usual freight-train of steamrolling Ducatis in this 2026 Superbike.

In Superpole tempers are always high, because moving up spots on the Race 2 grid is strategic. So at the start Lorenzo Baldassarri got a bit aggressive on Garrett Gerloff, causing a fairly serious incident that sidelined two of the previous day’s protagonists. Riders OK, fortunately. To wrap up, it’s nice to see the timid resurgence of Danilo Petrucci, who climbed to eleventh after a Saturday so bad it was hard to believe. Two years ago here Petrux swept the field, thrilling everyone as a privateer with the Barni Ducati. Now he’s a factory rider for the BMW armada, but nothing is going his way.

-> Follow us on Instagram as well: @Corsedimoto

Photo: Mauro Stanzani