Shock: Nicolo Bulega stabbed in the neck – “definitely for the 20th time”

With leads of 0.252 and 0.150 seconds respectively, Nicolo Bulega finished top of the timesheets in both Superbike practice sessions on Friday in Jerez de la Frontera, ahead of his Ducati team-mate Sam Lowes from the Marc VDS team on both occasions. On his 27th birthday, he spoke of a “lack of grip”, and said it wasn’t “bad”, but not quite what he’d imagined. The birthday party won’t be until Sunday after the races. “I’m old now and have to go to bed early,” grinned Nico. “I can’t party that much anyway, because otherwise I’d have to rest for a week – after Cremona, it took me three days to recover.”

Bulega has fond memories of the circuit in Andalusia; he usually finds racing there a breeze. “I won the Supersport World Championship title here, secured my first pole position and my first podium in Moto3, and won Superbike races in 2024 and 2025,” the Italian summarised.

Nico Bulega had a run-in with a bee

Aside from the usual problems on the motorbike, the 49-time race winner also had a troublesome encounter. “I had a problem with a bee,” Nicolo explained to a small group of journalists, pointing to a swollen red mark on his neck. “But we’re both still alive. That was five or six laps before the end of the session. In Turn 8, I felt something on my neck and thought to myself, ‘not again’. I quickly realised it was a bee; that’s definitely happened to me 20 times on the motorbike. I’m riding – and battling with a bee. As a child, the doctor told me I was slightly allergic, but I’m still alive.”

Although there are still three rounds to go at Jerez in the 2026 Superbike World Championship, the world champion has already broken a number of key records. He has won 29 races in a single season; the previous record, set by Álvaro Bautista in 2023, stood at 27. Bulega has triumphed in nine of the eleven events so far across all three races and has also set a new record with 664 points. No rider before him has achieved 44 consecutive podium finishes across multiple seasons; in terms of podium finishes in a single season (33), only Jonathan Rea is ahead of him – the Northern Irishman managed an astonishing 34 in 2019.

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