Nicolò Bulega: From the ashes to MotoGP

I waited a little before talking about it. Even though it had already been certain and in the air for quite some time, the announcement of Nicolò Bulega as the new VR46 rider in MotoGP left me a little stunned. Not because of the news itself, Nicolò absolutely deserves it, but because I started thinking about the entire journey that has brought him to this point. And it was an incredible one...

The climb towards the World Championship

I had already heard and read his name many times when he raced in the PreGP classes in Italy and when, if I remember correctly, he also took part in the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup selections without making it through. But it was when he arrived in the Moto3 Junior World Championship, back in 2014, that I really started watching and following him more closely. I saw him battling against riders who, like him, would eventually make it to the World Championship, initially on the KTM of Team Calvo (which was the name of Team Laglisse that year) and then in 2015, still on a KTM but with the VR46 team.

Already in 2014, he had shown significant growth, including two podiums towards the end of the season, but it was 2015 that truly revealed Nicolò Bulega, or Nicolò Jarod Bulega if you prefer. He wasn't only fast, but also consistent and capable of winning. He scored just one, but he also got plenty of podiums and, above all, no DNFs, while rivals such as Albert Arenas, Joan Mir and Arón Canet often won but either made mistakes or faced some bad luck.

In motorcycle racing, you need to be not only fast, but also smart and consistent. Bulega already demonstrated those qualities in 2015, the year that established him as Moto3 Junior World Champion. There was also an extra cherry on top: a wildcard appearance at the final 2015 Moto3 World Championship race in Valencia, where he even scored points with a strong 12th-place finish.

After that, the natural next step could only be the move to the Moto3 World Championship.

Moto3: Rapid rise, gradual decline

The VR46 team, then sponsored by Sky Italia, went all out in 2016 to welcome “Bulegas” as well and pair him with experienced rider Romano Fenati and Andrea Migno, who was entering his second year in the Grand Prix paddock.

With his long hair and the interesting contrast between his bold gaze and his humble approach, that 16-year-old kid immediately joined the front group in that year. He reached the podium very quickly and generally maintained a consistent level, despite a few retirements. Sky Italia celebrated him to the fullest, including some rather “disturbing” features like one about how he arranged fries on his dish (if I remember correctly, it was during that year's French Grand Prix). Huge expectations began to build around him. Many even described him as Valentino Rossi's heir, especially since he had raced with the number 46 in the Moto3 Junior World Championship.

That kind of overexposure and excessive celebration brings with it huge expectations, enormous pressure and fear of making mistakes. Especially in the era of social media, where many people are ready to celebrate you one day and make fun of you the next.

And, gradually, something seemed to break.

After a very positive 2016 season for a rookie, Bulega entered 2017 with already a huge weight due to expectations. Same team, same bike and the clear goal of fighting for the top positions. That happened only a few times: the rider from Montecchio never reached the podium again, with fourth place at the Sachsenring as his best result. The season itself wasn't even that bad, but instead of taking a step forward, he kind of moved backwards.

In 2016, he finished seventh with 129 points. In 2017, he could manage no better than 12th with 81 points. Meanwhile, the riders with whom he fought to be Rookie of the Year in 2016, or were regularly behind him, took a huge step forward and became major protagonists. The list included Joan Mir, Fabio Di Giannantonio and Arón Canet. Actually, Mir became Moto3 World Champion in that year.

Then came 2018, a catastrophic one. Bulega regularly strated from the last rows of the grid, crashed multiple times and hit rock bottom from the motivational point of view. Meanwhile, his teammate Dennis Foggia, who made his World Championship debut, improved step by step. His height was certainly a factor, as he had by then reached 1.80 metres, but it was clear that something else wasn't working either. Then came the domestic accident that kept him out of the final races, followed by the podium scored by his substitute Celestino Vietti in Australia.

Moto2: Hope gone lost

When you come out of a disaster, you try to pick up the pieces and find a way to start again. In Nicolò Bulega's case, that solution seemed to be a move to Moto2, a way more suitable class for a rider who had grown a lot physically. He made that step, again with the VR46 team.

His 2019 season had its ups and downs, with occasional top 10 finishes and points here and there, but also several retirements. In the meantime, it had become clear that something was no longer working in his relationship with the team and with VR46. Eventually, it was announced that Bulega and the VR46 team would part ways at the end of the season, with the rider from Emilia-Romagna also leaving the VR46 Riders Academy.

He didn't simply need to change categories. He needed a radical switch.

Nicolò Bulega, together with his entourage, went looking for that change at Gresini Racing, where he raced for two years. But things didn't improve at all and this was evident already in 2020. During a season shortened and affected, like everything else, by the COVID 19 pandemic, Bulega struggled to reach the top 10, although he eventually made it there towards the end of the season.

In 2021, however, it all came to an end: races outside the points, countless mistakes and a confidence in himself that needed to be rebuilt from scratch.

There is one particular episode from that year that I remember: his crash at the 2021 Spanish GP at Jerez. Why do I remember it? Not because of the crash itself, but because of what happened immediately afterwards: Nicolò Bulega was lying on the ground and stood up after several moments. It didn't look like an injury, nor did it look like shock. It rather looked like resignation, in front of a situation that seemed much bigger than him and a wall that, at that moment, he just couldn't climb.

A reset was clearly needed. And it was equally clear that this reset could not happen in Grand Prix.

Rebirth in World Supersport

Towards the end of the 2021 season, it was announced that Nicolò Bulega would move to the Supersport World Championship. He was signed by the Aruba.it Racing Team, and he would ride a Ducati Panigale V2, which made its championship debut that year alongside the other “Next Generation” bikes such as the Triumph Street Triple 765 and the MV Agusta F3 800. There was certainly an element of uncertainty, given that it was a new bike and a new era for the Supersport World Championship, but his manager Alberto Martinelli strongly believed in the project, as it seemed the first building block in rebuilding Bulega's career.

And the first year immediately proved those who believed in him right.

Even though the Ducati had been heavily limited by the Balance of Performance, Bulega immediately showed that those Moto2 years didn't represent him at all. He reached the podium already at Motorland Aragón, at the opening round of the 2022 season, and he went on to score eight more top-3 finishes. He also was regularly the best rider among those competing on the new “Next Generation” bikes. That was no small achievement, considering that the Yamaha YZF-R6 was still favoured by the Balance of Performance, with Dominique Aegerter and Lorenzo Baldassarri fighting for victories. Even without ever winning, Bulega did an outstanding job, finishing fourth in the championship ahead of Federico Caricasulo, who was also riding a Ducati V2 but had several years of experience with production-based machinery.

It doesn't take much, however, to understand that 2022 was only an "appetizer" for what came shortly afterwards.

Remaining with Aruba.it Racing Ducati, Bulega started the 2023 campaign by winning both races at Phillip Island. And from there, he never stopped: 16 wins out of 24 races, achieved both through domination and through hard-fought battles, is a statistic that simply cannot be ignored. And those are the results that deservedly took Nicolò Bulega to the top of the world: he became the 2023 Supersport World Champion, with almost a 100-point advantage over Stefano Manzi.

I remember that by the middle of the year, there was already persistent talk about a move to the Superbike World Championship, although it was still unknown whether he would make the switch with Aruba.it Racing or with one of Ducati's independent teams, such as Barni Racing. Eventually, we all found out how it went: Nicolò Bulega was promoted to Superbike in 2024, directly with the Aruba.it Racing Team.

And I also remember something rather curious.

Anecdote

One evening in May 2023, I went for drinks with some friends. And I drunk a bit too much...

At one point, I sent a voice message to a rider who was a friend of Bulega, saying: “BULEGA HAS TO GO TO SUPERBIIIIKE!! HE MUST REPLACE RINALDI (who was racing in SBK with Ducati Aruba at the time). THEY MUST CHOOSE BULEGAAAAAA!!”

But that wasn't all. In other messages, I talked about how the real Bulega was the one we were seeing in the Supersport World Championship at that time, not the rider who had struggled in Moto2, and that he deserved more than anyone to move up to Superbike and to do so immediately with a factory Ducati.

I had drunk a lot that night, I am not going to hide it, and you could definitely hear it in those voice messages. But isn't it true that when we are drunk, we tend to speak more honestly and without filters?

It didn't end there.

Two months later, I went to Most for the Czech Round of WorldSBK. While talking to a World Supersport rider who was a friend of Bulega, I discovered something that completely shocked me: those messages where drunken me praised Bulega...had been forwarded to Bulega himself!

And I discovered something else too: Bulega was very happy about those messages and thanked me a lot there in Most. He had really liked my words, and you could tell. If he also liked how I expressed myself in those clips...I don't know, we never talked about that :-)

Now let's get back to his journey, which is probably better.

The battles against Razgatlıoğlu in Superbike

Anyone expecting a rookie season somewhere in the middle of the standings, with just a few flashes of brilliance (as many rookies do), was wrong.

In 2024, Nicolò Bulega moved up to Superbike to win, and to do it immediately. Immediately, indeed: Bulega won his very first Superbike race at Phillip Island, ahead of Andrea Locatelli and Andrea Iannone. And even though he only won a few more races afterwards, Bulega did something that nobody expected from him that year: he fought for the title as a rookie. And he challenged Toprak Razgatlıoğlu, who did sensational stuff on his BMW machine and won races one after another. He didn't win the title in his first WorldSBK year, but nobody had asked him to do it...

The duel between Razgatlıoğlu and Bulega continued in 2025. This time, however, Bulega genuinely believed he could win the title, and he made that clear by dominating the opening round in Australia. The season then became a constant sequence of battles and tension, with an extremely heated atmosphere at the grand finale in Jerez. How did it end? Razgatlıoğlu won the title with 616 points, while Bulega finished second with 603 points. Looking back, what made the difference was Bulega's double DNF at Assen due to technical issues: the Ducati of "Bubi" (as his friends call him) stopped both in the Superpole Race and in Race 2.

I especially remember one round from that year: the Portuguese one. Razgatlıoğlu's braking mastery and aggressiveness on the BMW, against Bulega's smoothness and speed on the straight on the Ducati. Two completely different worlds, that fought each other to the limit through the hills of Portimão. Pure poetry, for motorcycle racing fans.

The year ended in bitter disappointment, but Bulega managed to turn that into motivation for 2026.

The explosion and the fairy tale

There's no need to talk much on this part, because the track and the numbers speak for themselves: 26 wins out of 27 races and nine rounds held so far, races dominated from start to finish and a level of superiority we hadn't seen in the WorldSBK for a very long time.

Let's put aside phrases like “yeah, but Ducat has the best bike”, “yeah, but nobody stops him”, “yeah, but this and that...”. As I said, the track and the numbers speak for themselves. And the races may sometimes be decided very quickly for first positions, but watching Bulega win in such smoothness and confidence, while thinking about everything he had been through, is beautiful. Truly beautiful.

His performances spoke very loud for Ducati, which has involved him heavily in the development of the 850cc machine that we will see in MotoGP from 2027.

His performances spoke very loud for Ducati, to the point that they wanted to bring him to MotoGP. And there he will race, with the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team.

If we look at the entire journey he has made, we realise that Nicolò Bulega's story is one that perfectly embodies the story of the phoenix: birth, growth, ashes and rebirth from those ashes.

Bulega was born, grew up and exploded onto the motorcycle racing scene at a very young age, achieving great things and leading both Italian television and fans to identify him as the new Valentino Rossi. That media hype and those excessive expectations eventually consumed him, reducing him to ashes. Ashes that were also left behind by many of the people who had pushed him to the limit, only to turn their backs on him during his darkest times.

However, "Bubi" can fortunately count on many people on his side, including his girlfriend Camilla (with him also at most races), his father Davide (a former rider himself) and many friends in and outside of the paddock. And Ducati, that together with Aruba.it Racing took him under its umbrella during the worst moment of his career, and helped him transform into a true champion.

From the ashes where his career ended up, Bulega built his rebirth. And he rebuilt his career piece by piece, eventually proving who he truly is. And he eventually earned himself, finally, that MotoGP seat he dreamed about.