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They say you can't win them all. But in fact, sometimes you can. Or, to be totally accurate, sometimes an exceptional racer on the right motorcycle at the right time, with the aid of a bit of luck, can win them all. We may see it in 2026.
With seven of 12 rounds complete, Aruba.it Racing Ducati's Nicolò Bulega has won every World Superbike race so far this year. Every full-length Saturday and Sunday race and every Sunday sprint. He's long since broken the record for most consecutive WorldSBK race wins. Now, he's going for that perfect season. And he's more than halfway there.
Can he do it? I decided to get an opinion from someone who follows roadracing much more closely and understands it in greater depth than I do. Namely, David Emmett, founder of Motomatters.com.
"I think there is maybe a 75% chance of Bulega winning all the races," said Emmett. "He has to avoid making mistakes and stay upright, which is tricky.
"I think Bulega has more in hand this year, and so doesn't have to risk so much. But the challenge there is maintaining focus and not making mistakes."
The elusiveness of perfection
In grand prix motorcycle racing, we haven't seen a perfect season since a very different and long-ago time. Giacomo Agostini won all 10 races in 1968. He might have had a perfect season in 1969, but after winning the first 10 races, he sat out the last two because he'd already clinched the championship. (Yes, times were different.) Before that, John Surtees won all the races in 1959. But officially there were only seven.
We've never seen a perfect season in World Superbike or, here in the states, in MotoAmerica Superbike. The closest we've come recently was Jake Gagne's amazing 2021 season in which he not only won 17 of 20 races, but also won a record 16 in a row and led an astounding 244 consecutive laps during a mid-season stretch.
We have seen perfect seasons a few times at the top level of motocross. Ricky Carmichael won every moto in 2002 and 2004 and James Stewart did the same in 2008. Even more impressive, Jett Lawrence won every moto in 2023 to record a perfect season in his rookie year in the 450 class.
Is a perfect season possible in WorldSBK? Emmett points out that Bulega has several factors in his favor, starting with the fact that he is the lead rider on the Ducati factory team and the Panigale V4R is proving to be the best bike on the grid. Six of the top eight riders in the standings are on Panigales. Also, while many riders changed teams in the off-season, Bulega returned to the familiar settings of the Aruba.it Racing team. Plus, some potential competitors have been hampered by injury. But Emmett said he believes another factor explains Bulega's consistency and just how difficult it is to beat him.
Bulega finished second in his first two years in the Superbike class, 2024 and 2025, behind Toprak Razgatlıoğlu. With Razgatlıoğlu off to MotoGP this year, Bulega instantly became the favorite in WorldSBK and he has more than lived up to the expectations. Emmett believes that intense competition with Razgatlıoğlu forged Bulega.
"I think the main key was losing the championship to Toprak last year, when he had built up a lead in the first half of the season," Emmett said. "He learned an awful lot last year, in how to dig a bit deeper when he needed to, and the importance of consistency. And because he was de facto Ducati's number-one rider last year, he learned to carry that responsibility. So I think he laid the foundations there.
"I think Toprak made Bulega the rider he is."
Reinforcing the idea that Bulega is on the best motorcycle on the best team, the biggest threat to his chances of achieving a perfect season appears to be his teammate, Iker Lecuona. A common pattern is the two factory Ducatis steadily drawing away from the field, both several tenths of a second per lap faster than anyone else. But with Bulega just a few tenths faster than Lecuona.
"Lecuona has been adapting to the bike throughout this season, and is getting better each weekend," Emmett said. "But Bulega is a hard man to beat."
If we were just talking about winning the championship, it would be a fairly safe bet. Only a season-ending injury could prevent that. But we're talking about that elusive perfect season, and it only takes one small mistake — perhaps even a mistake by someone else as a crowded pack leans into turn one in a race — to end that. So the odds are something else entirely.
Because a perfect Superbike season is something we've never seen. Yet.
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