LEAVING PORTUGAL As WorldSBK wrapped up at Portimao, Bulega already has a commanding lead in the championship. He’ s also on an unbroken run of ten wins from ten starts( six from this year, the rest from the tail-end of season 2025). Coming away from Portimao, he sits on 124-points ahead of Lecuona’ s 68-points. That’ s a 56-point difference which, when you consider maximum points from a single round is 62-points, is a hell of a lead after two rounds. His race pace was five seconds quicker than last year’ s mark, showing the progression in both bike and rider development. Bimota’ s Axel Bassani, despite a weekend which wasn’ t quite up to the standards of his Round One outing, still holds third spot on 60-points with BMW’ s Oliveira the big mover, his weekend dragging him up to fourth in the championship on 56-points. Lowes A, Lowes S, Baldassari, Petrucci and Montella round out the top 10. The stars of Portimao were, of course, Nicolo Bulega but more surprisingly, Iker Lecuona and Miguel Oliveria who absolutely levelled up. And hats off again to Sam Lowes for gritting his teeth through the pain and scoring well in all three races. WorldSBK 2026 continues with Round Three at Assen, The Cathedral of Speed, a circuit with a mountain of history on its shoulders, over the weekend of April 17th-19th. From Assen, the season heads into a busy May with the Hungarian round( at Balaton Park), Czech Round( Autodrom Most) and Spanish Round( MotorLand Aragon) which will bring us to the midway point of the season.
90 KIWI RIDER