Bulega dominates as World Superbike returns

Last weekend marked the return of top flight racing in the shape of the World Superbike Championship and it was Italian Nicolo Bulega who dominated with the Ducati rider winning all three races at the picturesque Phillip Island circuit in Australia.

Bulega’s on fire

This time last year, Bulega was a World Superbike Championship rookie, and he shocked the paddock somewhat when he won the opening race of the season. This time though, it wasn’t a shock to see him come out on top and after finishing second overall in last year’s series he’d have wanted to have started 2025 in the manner which he has.

Bulega clearly enjoys the flowing Phillip Island circuit, as does the Ducati, but his hat-trick at the weekend has laid down a clear marker and fired a clear warning to the rest of the field, especially as each win was achieved in a relatively comfortable fashion.

Nicolo Bulega (Phillip Island) Image Credit Aruba.it Racing Ducati

He pushed eventual champion Toprak Razgatlioglu all the way last season taking 23 podiums but only six of those were victories so it’s clear where he needs to improve.

He’s still only 25 though and last years’ experience will have done him the world of good so that’s why he’s rightly being considered as one of the favourites in 2025. The title won’t have been decided at round one but Bulega has got his campaign off to the perfect start.

Frustration for Razgatlioglu

If Bulega started his campaign in a faultless manner, the same couldn’t be said for reigning champion Razgatlioglu with the BMW rider leaving Australia with just one second place finish and twenty points to his name, which already puts him 42 points behind Bulega.

The Turk cut a frustrated figure both on and off track, clearly unhappy with the performance of the BMW M1000RR and what he later described as the ‘Ducati Cup’, such was the dominance of the Italian brand at Phillip Island. Indeed, the Panigale took eight of the nine podium places in Australia with the top five riders in the championship after the opening round all Ducati-mounted.

Toprak Razgatlioglu Image Credit ROKiT BMW Motorrad

However, pre-season hasn’t gone smoothly for Razgatlioglu with a pre-season hand injury limiting his track time whilst an early spill in practice at Phillip Island wouldn’t have helped his cause. On top of that, round one has rarely seen him at his best so perhaps we shouldn’t read too much into his performance.

At the same time though, he knows the opposition have upped their game and he’ll want to get back to winning ways sooner rather than later. And he’ll be demanding BMW give him the tools to do exactly that.

Strength in depth

Having lost both the riders and manufacturers titles in 2024, it’s clear Ducati have been working hard over the winter months to give themselves every chance of reclaiming both championships this time around.

Both Bulega and official factory team-mate Alvaro Bautista have expressed their satisfaction with the latest version of the Ducati Panigale V4R, but the level of support being given to the independent teams has clearly been increased too.

That’s what caught the eye the most at the opening round and with six other Ducati riders on the grid this year, Andrea Iannone (Team Pata Go Eleven), Danilo Petrucci (Barni Spark Racing) and Scott Redding (MGM Bonovo Racing) were the pick of the bunch as they fought for the podium places in each race.

Danilo Petrucci Image Credit worldsbk.com

Both Iannone (twice) and Petrucci (once) achieved that feat with Redding taking a brace of fourths and a fifth for his best weekend since the middle of 2022, the Brit clearly happy to be back with the brand who he finished second and third overall with in 2020 and 2021 before three disappointing seasons at BMW.

Andrea Iannone Image Credit worldsbk.com

The Italian pairing of Petrucci and Iannone, meanwhile, rode the Ducati last year and are therefore better placed to comment on any improvements. And both said there’s been a step up and they have better equipment to fight with so it will be interesting to see if they can contest the race wins when the series returns to the European circuits at the end of March.

Sam Lowes was another Ducati rider to enjoy himself at the opening round, the Brit taking a pair of top six finishes on the Elf Marc VDS machine. Having shown good single lap pace in his maiden campaign in 2024, race pace proved to be his Achilles heel but the signs already look a lot more promising.

Solid start for Bimota

News mid-way through the 2024 season that the Provec team were leaving their position as the official Kawasaki entrant in WSB surprised many – none more so than riders Alex Lowes and Axel Bassani no doubt – especially as the decision had been made to join forces with Bimota.

The Italian chassis manufacturer has a rich history in the sport, including winning the very first WSB race at Donington Park in 1988 (with current Ducati MotoGP team manager Davide Tardozzi) but have been absent from the series since 2000 so eyebrows were understandably raised.

Alex Lowes Image Credit worldsbk.com

Having been purchased by Kawasaki Heavy Industries in 2019 though, the ZX-10RR engine would still be used and both riders have so far shown there’ll be more than competitive. Bassani was the quicker of the two throughout testing, but it was Lowes who came out on top at round one with seventh in the Superpole race and eighth in the other two encounters.

Bassani wasn’t too far behind in any of the three races so the signs are certainly encouraging and as development of the package continues, and both riders and team get more used to the new machine at their disposal, they should climb further up the leaderboard as the year progresses. Podium finishes will clearly be the aim.

Disaster for Rea

After a disappointing maiden campaign with the Pata Yamaha team in 2024, which saw him finish in a vastly unfamiliar 13th overall – by far his lowest ever position in the series – Jonathan Rea was reinvigorated for the start of the new year and whilst he hadn’t set the world alight in pre-season, the word from the camp was certainly more encouraging.

However, a testing crash at Phillip Island just a few days before practice got underway dashed all positivity and left him with multiple fractures in his left foot, immediately ruling him out of the first two rounds.

Jonathan Rea Image Credit Pata Yamaha

Hopes of regaining the crown he last won in 2020 have already gone so the year couldn’t have got off to a worse start for the 38-year old Northern Irishman. It wasn’t a great weekend all round for Yamaha either as they struggled to make an impression on the top ten.

Only Rea’s team-mate Andrea Locatelli achieved that feat, taking a sixth and two sevenths, as satellite rider Dominique Aegerter could only manage a pair of 12th’s. And for Remy Gardner on the second GYTR GRT Yamaha, it was a disastrous home round with the Australian failing to score a single point so clearly there’s work to be done within the Yamaha garage.

Rookie Vickers impresses

Ryan Vickers is the latest Brit to try his hand in the World Superbike Championship and whilst it’s fair to say the decision of Motocorsa Ducati to sign the 25-year old came as somewhat of a surprise, he’s so far impressed.

The Norfolk rider has six full seasons in the British Superbike Championship under his belt, so the time was clearly right to move before the opportunity passed him by and there’s no doubt he showed blistering speed at times in BSB when riding the OMG Racing Yamaha YZF-R1. Indeed, nine race wins came his way across the 2023 and 2024 seasons.

Ryan Vickers Image Credit worldsbk.com

Costly and, at times, unforced errors cost him any chance of challenging for the title though with fifth overall in 2024 his best championship position. However, Vickers is managed by former Grand Prix rider and Isle of Man TT winner Roger Burnett, a more than canny operator, and with the WSB deal secured, Vickers has so far grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

A solid pre-season was followed by an equally solid opening round where it was imperative he finished all three races. Vickers did exactly that and despite never having seen the Phillip Island circuit before, he finished all three races inside the top 15 to pick up four World Championship points. The weekend was error-free, and he got quicker as it progressed, the final race seeing him lap just a second slower than race winner Bulega. It’s given him a solid platform to build upon.

Booth-Amos wins in Supersport

The British riders in the World Superbike Championship may have had solid starts to their respective campaigns but they were all upstaged by World Supersport Championship rider Tom Booth-Amos who took first and second on his PTR Triumph to leave Australia as joint-championship leader.

Tom Booth-Amos leads Image Credit worldsbk.com

The Shropshire rider, winner of the 2017 British Moto 3 Championship, finished tenth overall last year with one podium to his name, and is now in his third World Supersport Championship season.

The competition is as fierce as ever – with the all-new Yamaha R9 in the hands of fellow Australian race winner Stefano Manzi, amongst others, only going to get stronger – but with the experience he has, there’s no reason why Booth-Amos can’t be a title contender.

Having started watching motorcycle races all over the world form childhood, Phil Wain has been a freelance motorcycle journalist for almost 20 years and is features writer for a number of publications including BikeSport News, Classic Racer and Road Racing Ireland, as well as being a regular contributor to MCN and MCN Sport.

He is PR officer for a number of teams and riders at both the British Superbike Championship and International road races, including PBM Ducati, John McGuinness, KTS Racing and Jackson Racing. He is also heavily involved with the Isle of Man TT Races working with the race organisation, writing official press releases and race reports as well as providing the TV and radio broadcasting teams with statistical information.