{"id":693456,"date":"2026-05-25T12:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T12:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/693456\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T12:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T12:09:11","slug":"why-alvaro-bautista-thinks-he-had-it-harder-than-nicolo-bulega-at-worldsbk-peak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/693456\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Alvaro Bautista thinks he had it harder than Nicolo Bulega at WorldSBK peak"},"content":{"rendered":"

The period of WorldSBK dominated by Alvaro Bautista was more difficult than the current season, which is being dominated by Nicolo Bulega, the Spaniard believes.<\/p>\n

Bautista won back-to-back WorldSBK<\/a> titles with Ducati in 2022 and 2023, winning 27 of 36 races in the latter season. In the middle of that, he equalled Jonathan Rea<\/a> the record at the time for the number of consecutive race wins at 11.<\/p>\n

Bulega<\/a>, on the other hand, has finished runner-up in the past two seasons to Toprak Razgatlioglu<\/a>, beating Bautista \u2013 to whom he was teammate \u2013 in both instances. This year, he\u2019s won every race, and leads the championship by 95 points after the opening five rounds aboard the new-for-2026 Ducati Panigale V4 R.<\/p>\n

\"Nicolo <\/p>\n

Nicolo Bulega, 2026 Czech WorldSBK, podium. Credit: Gold and Goose.<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a0Gold & Goose<\/p>\n

Bulega\u2019s win streak stretches back to Race 2 at Estoril last year, meaning it now stands at 19 races, a record by six over Razgatlioglu\u2019s benchmark of 13 set twice, in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n

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Since Razgatlioglu moved to MotoGP<\/a> over the winter, Bulega has been effectively peerless at the front of WorldSBK, even if his new teammate, Iker Lecuona<\/a>, has finished second in the past 12 races in succession.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s this peerlessness that Bautista thinks proves the Italian\u2019s dominance of the production derivative series has come about with less difficulty than his own three-to-four years ago, the Spaniard having done almost all of his winning against the likes of the aforementioned Rea and Razgatlioglu when they were both riding at or near their best.<\/p>\n

\"Alvaro <\/p>\n

Alvaro Bautista, 2026 Dutch WorldSBK, pit box. Credit: Gold and Goose.<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a0Gold & Goose<\/p>\n

\u201cThe positive thing for him [Bulega] is that he has no one really putting pressure on him,\u201d Alvaro Bautista<\/a> said on Saturday at the Hungarian WorldSBK, as reported by Italian publication GPOne. Bulega\u2019s win streak stood at 14 at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a good lead, so he can ride calmly and without taking risks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cI remember when I won 11 races: I had rivals who pushed me to the limit, like Toprak [Razgatlioglu] and Rea, so it was harder to maintain that consistency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, however, he has no real rivals. When you can push without pressure, everything becomes easier.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cStill, it\u2019s never easy to win so many races: you have to start well, avoid mistakes, and bring home every race.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Alvaro <\/p>\n

Alvaro Bautista, 2026 Phillip Island WorldSBK Test (Gold&Goose).<\/p>\n

Bautista, of course, remains on the WorldSBK grid in 2026, having moved to the Barni Ducati team where he has scored one podium this year.<\/p>\n

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That the Spaniard is among the field not rivalling Bulega this year means the Italian feels his former teammate\u2019s comments are insulting, but not to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s insulting himself, because he races against me,\u201d Bulega said, as reported by GPOne when Bautista\u2019s comments were put to him on Sunday in Hungary.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a very smart thing to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bautista\u2019s ability to challenge Bulega in 2026 took a hit in Czechia when he crashed in FP3 and fractured his right foot and ankle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The period of WorldSBK dominated by Alvaro Bautista was more difficult than the current season, which is being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[8074,6910,64,63,6908,806,805,803,804,6909,85],"class_list":["post-693456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-alvaro-bautista","tag-aruba-it-racing-ducati","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-barni-spark-racing-team","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-nicolo-bulega","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}