SBK Jerez: Bulega wins Race 2 and pulls away, while his rivals can’t wait

Nicolò Bulega signed off from his Superbike adventure in style, winning Race 2 as he so often does: lights out, breakaway, and goodbye to everyone else. His rivals can breathe a sigh of relief after a season that barely had time to get started: the 26-year-old Ducati rider swept the board at Phillip Island and, with 32 wins from 36 races, steamrolled the championship. That brings his career tally to 52 victories, all on a Ducati, just like a certain Troy Bayliss.

It was a day of farewells: alongside Bulega, who is moving to MotoGP with VR46 and the factory Ducati team, Danilo Petrucci and Alvaro Bautista are also leaving. The futures of both riders are highly uncertain; one thing is certain: neither will race in the World Championship. They all shed tears, including "Bubi" Bulega, who was given a warm send-off by the team that saved his career. "You’ll always be one of us." Beautiful.

In Race 2, Nicolò Bulega and Iker Lecuona’s Panigale V4 Rs took to the track in a special silver livery inspired by the 750 Imola Desmo, the bike on which Paul Smart and Bruno Spaggiari secured Ducati’s historic one-two at the 1972 Imola 200. Bimota, meanwhile, presented Alex Lowes and Axel Bassani in an elegant black outfit inspired by the special DB livery (on the Bimota powered by a Ducati engine) sold exclusively in the Australian market in 1985. Memories of another era: evocative, but completely out of place in a Superbike championship that no longer gets the heart racing as it once did. The technical regulations are only one part of the issue; the feeling is that the World Championship, once beloved by fans, needs a major overhaul. But who knows if that will ever happen.

Bulega once again showed Iker Lecuona up. Lecuona stayed reasonably close, but not close enough to make spectators think he might spring a surprise. Unbelievable: in a World Championship dominated so thoroughly by Ducati, the factory Ducati team finished first and second in eleven of the twelve rounds! In this late-season race, the battle for the final podium spot between Alvaro Bautista and Sam Lowes was a thrilling one, as they fought it out while a very light but treacherous drizzle began to fall on the track. It would have been a romantic end to see 41-year-old Bautista leave the stage from the top step, but Sam came out on top. Romance is no longer part of the story.

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