Cremona, Race 2: Lecuona celebrates a hat-trick, Bulega the Superbike World Championship title

When the second race got underway at 3.30 pm, the sun was shining from a cloudless sky and the thermometer read 26 degrees Celsius – a dream setting for one of the decisive races of the 2026 Superbike World Championship! The riders had 23 laps ahead of them. 45,977 spectators watched the tenth round of the season in person – an increase of over 6 per cent on the previous year.

The starting situation for the second race: Bulega went into the race with a 138-point lead over his Aruba.it team-mate and could afford to lose up to 14 points to Lecuona and still be crowned 2026 Superbike World Champion. After the Spaniard had won the first race and the sprint race, it remained to be seen how much risk Bulega would take to crown his title with a victory.

The grid had not changed significantly as a result of the Superpole race. For the third time this weekend, the front row consisted of the Ducati riders Iker Lecuona, Nicolò Bulega and Alberto Surra. Because Lorenzo Baldassarri (Ducati) had taken out Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki) in the sprint, the pair dropped back to 10th and 11th on the grid. Row 2 was therefore made up of Yari Montella (Ducati), Sam Lowes (Ducati) and Alex Lowes (Bimota). Miguel Oliveira (BMW) and Jake Dixon (Honda) moved up to 8th and 9th on the grid.

Lecuona got off to the best start and entered the first corner in the lead. Behind the Spaniard, Bulega, Surra and Montella settled into position. Alex Lowes (Bimota) and Miguel Oliveira (BMW) squeezed past Sam Lowes (Ducati) to move into fifth and sixth place.

After Lap 1, Lecuona led by 0.4 seconds ahead of Bulega. Oliveira had moved up to fifth place – but at Turn 10, the Portuguese rider’s BMW ended up in the gravel. The race was also over for Álvaro Bautista due to a technical problem. Jake Dixon was in ninth place.

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With similar lap times, the Ducati factory riders pulled away at the front and, after five laps, were already leading by 4 seconds ahead of Montella, Surra and Alex Lowes. Like Oliveira, Bridewell also crashed in Turn 10. Dixon benefited from this, having overtaken Garrett Gerloff on the sole Kawasaki and now sitting in seventh place. The best-placed Yamaha rider at this stage was Xavi Vierge in tenth position. BMW rider Danilo Petrucci was 14th, in the points, and just one second behind the Spaniard.

The gap between Lecuona (1st) and Bulega (2nd) gradually increased to 2.4 seconds by the halfway point of the race. Montella and Surra continued to battle for third place, whilst Alex Lowes had all but secured fifth place – his twin brother Sam had crashed at Turn 13. Although Dixon (6th) pulled away from Gerloff (7th), he did not manage to close the gap on the Bimota rider significantly.

In the second half of the race, Lecuona confirmed his dominance at the Cremona Circuit. The 26-year-old secured his third victory of the weekend – his first hat-trick – with a 6-second lead, thereby emerging from the shadow of his team-mate.

Nevertheless, the focus at the podium ceremony was on Bulega, who, with his second-place finish, was crowned world champion and successor to Toprak Razgatlioglu. This meant that the 26-time winner of the season saw his wish to win the title in front of a home crowd come true, even without a victory. During the cool-down lap, fans and friends rolled out a red carpet for the 26-year-old and presented him with a special helmet.

Ducati customer rider Yari Montella took third place on the podium. With Sam Lowes crashing out, the Italian consolidated his third place in the World Championship standings.

Behind Bimota ace Alex Lowes in fifth place, Jake Dixon secured the best Honda result in the 2026 Superbike World Championship with a well-deserved sixth place. The Englishman posted solid and consistent lap times and benefited from the fact that there were few crashes.

Garrett Gerloff crossed the finish line in 8th place on his Kawasaki ZX-10RR, looking somewhat disappointed. Andrea Locatelli secured the best result for Yamaha in 10th place – the Italian inherited the position from his teammate Vierge, who had crashed.

35 seconds behind, BMW rider Danilo Petrucci took the chequered flag in 12th place.