A podium for Lorenzo Baldassarri at the Australian WorldSBK has highlighted similarities between his own story and that of Nicolo Bulega, the latter thinks.

Both Bulega and Baldassarri moved to world championship competition in the grand prix paddock in the 2010s, students of the VR46 Riders Academy.

Both also enjoyed some degree of success, Bulega earning podiums in Moto3 while Baldassarri won five Moto2 races.

However, they also endured their slumps, Baldassarri going from Moto2 points leader in 2019 to out of the paddock at the end of 2021, while Bulega’s best finish in three seasons of Moto2 was a seventh at the 2019 Czech Grand Prix.

Both riders found themselves on the podium in Race 1 at the Australian WorldSBK, albeit in much different circumstances.

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For Bulega, the 2026 season is set up for him to become world champion, while Baldassarri is making his return to World Superbike after a disappointing rookie season in 2023 with GMT94 Yamaha left him returning to Supersport in 2024 before racing in MotoE last year.

The Phillip Island podium was Baldassarri’s first, as it was for Yari Montella in second place. Bulega admitted that, although he expected Montella to be on the podium, Baldassarri’s presence there was unexpected. 

“Montella had a good pace yesterday so I expected him to be on the podium, but not Balda [Lorenzo Baldassarri],” the Aruba.it Racing Ducati rider told WorldSBK.com.

“So I’m really happy for him because we had maybe a similar story because when we were in Moto3 and Moto2 he was very fast and then he had some bad moments, like me, and now he came back on the podium.”

Baldassarri: Podium “a big relief”

Baldassarri’s podium in Race 1 means the Go Eleven team has been on the podium in at least one race at Phillip Island in each of the last three WorldSBK rounds there, Andrea Iannone having picked up silverware at the season opener in the past two seasons.

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It’s also a podium that comes after an encouraging test earlier in the week that saw Baldassarri in the top-three on the combined time sheets.

“It’s a big relief for me,” Baldassarri told WorldSBK.com of the meaning of the podium.

“We made a very good job with the team, with all the Ducati guys and there was a very good environment in the box. 

“We were all together working step-by-step, in small steps. 

“The feeling from the first full dry session was good, and from there we [continued to build] and we arrive achieving in the first race the first podium. 

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“It means a lot for us and we have to keep going with this spirit and keep improving.”

Baldassarri added that he was stressed at the end of the race because a degrading rear tyre seemed to threaten to drop him off the podium, with Axel Bassani closing in behind, and perhaps even outside the top-five, Baldassarri thought.

“The last five laps was like another race because I was struggling a lot in the left side – he [Bassani] had a big advantage,” he said.

“I think four laps to go, in [turn three] I lost completely the rear so here I said ‘Okay, maybe I have, not to retire, but to slow down a lot’, and I didn’t know if [I could] finish in the top-five.

“But I wanted to forget everything, just try to be a precise as possible, and at the end for like nothing I could manage to have the podium.”

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