Nicolo Bulega reacts to matching idol Troy Bayliss with record-breaking WorldSBK win

Just one day after becoming the only WorldSBK rider ever to win 30 races in a single season, Nicolo Bulega has now matched the career win total of Troy Bayliss.

The 2027 VR46 MotoGP rider completed his tenth hat-trick of the year with another dominant Sunday at Jerez.

Across all three races, Bulega only lost the lead for a few corners on lap one of Race 2.

Victory in that race means the Italian has won a total of 32 out of 36 races this season, an achievement that not even Jonathan Rea, Toprak Razgatlioglu, or Alvaro Bautista managed throughout their illustrious superbike careers.

“It was an incredible year,” Bulega told WorldSBK.com. “A lot of wins; the worst result was second. The results speak for themselves.”

While setting new records was not something Bulega spent much time thinking about, he did admit that matching Bayliss’ tally of 52 WorldSBK wins was special to him, as the Australian was one of his idols growing up.

Bulega added: “Normally, I don’t see this many types of records. I think that today I equalled [Troy] Bayliss [in terms of] victories, so it is incredible. Bayliss was one of my idols and now my name is close to him.”

Bulega had already set numerous WorldSBK records before this weekend began, however, the Italian was also determined to add another three wins to his name at Jerez.

That’s because Bulega wanted to leave the Aruba.it Ducati team in the best possible way, and after achieving his target, the Italian cut an emotional figure post-race, as did many of his team members. 

“Everybody was crying, and me too,” said Bulega. “For me, it was very important to win today because I wanted to leave this paddock and this team with more wins, and we achieved another incredible weekend.”