Nicolo Bulega extended his stranglehold on the World Superbike Championship at MotorLand Aragon, controlling Race 1 from the front to claim a scarcely believable 20th consecutive victory under a beating Spanish sun.
The Ducati rider made the perfect start when the lights went out over the 18-lap dash, fending off an early lunge from Iker Lecuona, who showed a wheel into Turn 1 but could not make the move stick. From there Bulega did what he has done all season: built a small cushion in the opening laps and then managed it with the calm of a rider in complete command. He crossed the line 1.274 seconds clear of Lecuona, the trophy fittingly handed to him by 2011 world champion Carlos Checa and lifted aloft in front of a packed grandstand.
"Another great race. I'm really happy," Bulega said afterwards. "We did a fantastic job, especially this morning in qualifying — we tried a small detail on the bike that I liked, so we made a step. Then in the race I started first, the first two or three laps I tried to make a gap, and it was a good race."
Behind the runaway leader, the battle for the final rostrum spot delivered the drama. Sam Lowes recovered from a poor getaway — which initially dropped him behind twin brother Alex — to fight his way back to third and onto the podium for the first time since the Dutch round. Alex Lowes had to settle for fourth after the brothers swapped places early on, with Tommy Bridewell producing one of his strongest World Superbike rides to date in fifth, gaining two positions from his grid slot and holding off Lorenzo Baldassarri.
It was not a day without incident. Andrea Locatelli, running just outside the top 10, lost the front of his Yamaha at the exit of Turn 14 to end his point-scoring hopes, while Muhammad Zamzami's return to the championship lasted barely a lap before a fall at the same corner. Tarran Mackenzie got the better of Michael Ruben Rinaldi in a feisty scrap over 10th, and Somkiat Chantra, who had carved his way back into the points after a grid penalty for a yellow-flag infringement, was demoted two places after the flag for irresponsible riding.
For all the racing further back, the headline remains the same one that has dominated the season: Bulega is operating on a different level. Twenty wins in a row is the kind of streak that bends a championship out of shape, and on current form the question at Aragon is not whether he can be beaten, but whether anyone in the paddock has an answer at all.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/bulega-20-in-a-row-aragon-worldsbk-race1-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
