Nicolò Bulega sealed the 2026 Superbike World Championship at Cremona with 664 points and 29 wins, the most in a single season, as Toprak Razgatlıoğlu’s move to MotoGP left the throne vacant for the Ducati rider to claim.
The 2026 FIM Superbike World Championship will be remembered as Nicolò Bulega’s season. The Aruba.it Racing – Ducati rider was crowned World Champion at his home round at Cremona, finishing second in Race 2 to mathematically secure the title with one round still to spare, and in doing so he set a new benchmark for dominance.
Bulega’s 664 points surpassed Jonathan Rea’s previous single-season record of 663 set in 2019, and his 29 race wins set a new mark for the most victories in one campaign. He also reeled off 25 consecutive race wins stretching from the 2025 Estoril Round to the 2026 Emilia-Romagna Round at Misano, the longest such streak the championship has seen.
The title was Bulega’s first, arriving after back-to-back runner-up finishes in the previous two seasons. With Toprak Razgatlıoğlu — the 2025 champion — moving to MotoGP for 2026, the championship was open for the first time in thirteen years without the reigning title holder on the grid, and Bulega seized it from the very first weekend.
He won all three races at the Phillip Island opener and rarely ceded ground thereafter, sweeping the Australian, Dutch, Hungarian, Czech, Aragón, Emilia-Romagna, UK and French rounds. Only at Cremona, where teammate Iker Lecuona took a maiden hat-trick, did Bulega have to settle for second in Race 2 — and even that was enough to clinch the crown.
Lecuona finished a clear runner-up in the standings on 518 points, his best WorldSBK result, setting records for the most second-place finishes in a season. Behind the factory Ducati pair, Yari Montella (Barni Spark Racing Team) emerged as the leading Independent rider and third overall.
Ducati successfully defended the manufacturers’ championship — its 22nd and fifth in a row — and the Aruba.it Racing squad secured a fifth consecutive teams’ title. The 2026 season was the last for Pirelli as long-standing tyre supplier before Michelin takes over in 2027.
The 2026 FIM Superbike World Championship standings, verified via worldsbk.com after the Tissot Estoril Round (Round 11), show Bulega champion on 664 points, 146 clear of Iker Lecuona on 518, with Yari Montella third on 290. Alex Lowes (bimota by Kawasaki) is fourth on 237 and Sam Lowes (ELF Marc VDS) fifth on 225. One round remains at Jerez on 17–18 October.
In the teams classification, Aruba.it Racing – Ducati leads on 1182 points from bimota by Kawasaki Racing Team on 445 and Barni Spark Racing Team on 427. The factory Ducati squad’s advantage reflects a season in which both of its entries finished at the front almost every weekend, the defining trait of a championship-winning team.