Nicolò Bulega is coming back to the Grand Prix paddock. From 2027, he will race in MotoGP with the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team alongside Fermín Aldeguer, returning to the structure that played such an important part in the beginning of his career.
At 11 o’clock. For the rider who has carried the number 11 for years. And in the week MotoGP arrives at Misano. It would have been difficult to choose a more fitting moment.
But simply calling it a return does not quite tell the story. Because Nicolò is not reaching MotoGP through the road that once seemed mapped out for him as a teenager. That road ended. He had to build another one.
WorldSSP. WorldSBK. Ducati.
A World Championship. Two runner-up seasons. And a 2026 campaign that has turned him into the dominant force of Superbike.
Now that second road has brought him back to where the first one was supposed to lead. Only this time, Bulega is a completely different rider.
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Nicolò Bulega: VR46 first, then a road that changed direction
The relationship between Bulega and VR46 goes back a long way.
In 2015, Nicolò won the FIM CEV Moto3 Junior World Championship and made his Grand Prix debut with the SKY Racing Team VR46. The following year he completed his first full Moto3 season, finishing seventh in the Championship with two podiums. He stayed in Moto3 for three full seasons before moving to Moto2 in 2019, again with VR46. Those were the years when Bulega was considered one of the most promising Italian riders of his generation.
Then the trajectory changed.
Moto2 never became the step forward he had hoped for. After his 2019 season with VR46, he moved to Gresini for 2020 and 2021, but the results remained far away from the expectations that had surrounded him when he was younger.
At the end of 2021, his Grand Prix career stopped.
At least for the time being.
The rebuild begins in WorldSSP
In 2022, Nicolò Bulega changed paddocks. He joined Aruba.it Racing and Ducati in World Supersport. And something started working again. Nine podiums came in that first season.
Then came 2023. Sixteen victories in 24 races. Twenty-one podiums. And the World Championship — Ducati’s first riders’ title in the history of WorldSSP.
Perhaps that was the point where Nicolò’s story really changed. Not because he suddenly became the teenager everyone had once expected to reach MotoGP. But because he stopped needing to be that teenager. He started becoming the rider he is now. Bulega himself later described the move to WorldSSP as potentially his final opportunity to remain a professional rider. He did considerably more than survive it.
WorldSBK changes everything
The promotion to WorldSBK arrived in 2024. First race on the Panigale V4 R. First victory. By the end of his rookie season, Bulega had six wins and 24 podiums and was second in the World Championship.
In 2025, he tried again. Fourteen victories. Thirty-two podiums in 36 races. And another runner-up finish, once again behind Toprak Razgatlioglu.
Then came 2026. And this time Nicolò has not simply been fighting for the title. He has been dominating.
After Magny-Cours, Bulega leads the Championship with 553 points, 146 ahead of teammate Iker Lecuona. His French hat-trick took him to 26 victories this season, just one short of the all-time record for wins in a single WorldSBK campaign. At the next round in Cremona, he can become World Champion on home soil.
And this is the version of Bulega that MotoGP is getting.
Not a rescue project. Not a gamble on what he might become. A consequence of what he has already become.
He already knows something about the MotoGP waiting for him
There is another reason why the timing of this move is so interesting. Bulega will not arrive in 2027 completely blind to the motorcycle underneath him. Since 2026, he has worked as an official Ducati MotoGP test rider alongside Michele Pirro, with a specific role in the development of the Desmosedici for the new technical regulations. Those regulations will bring 850cc engines and Pirelli tyres — a manufacturer Bulega already knows intimately from WorldSBK. During the summer, he was fastest in the multi-manufacturer 850cc test at Barcelona aboard Ducati’s new prototype.
That does not mean the jump from Superbike to MotoGP will be easy. It will not. Different machinery, with different racing and opponents. Different demands. But Bulega will begin his rookie MotoGP season having already helped develop the motorcycle he will need to understand. That is an unusual place for a rookie to start.
VR46 — but not like the first time
And then there is the garage. Fluorescent yellow. VR46. They already know each other. But it would be wrong to describe this as Nicolò simply going “home”. Because he has changed. And so has the team.
VR46 is now Ducati’s Factory Supported Team, a partnership that has been extended into MotoGP’s new technical era. On the other side of the garage will be Fermín Aldeguer, whose move to VR46 for 2027 has already been confirmed. A completely new line-up. One rider continuing his MotoGP path. Another returning to the Grand Prix paddock after having to rebuild his entire career somewhere else.
Bulega will have plenty to learn. But he does not arrive without experience. He arrives knowing what it feels like for one road to disappear. And what it takes to build another.
Number 11 has travelled a long way
The 11 itself carries a story. Bulega chose it because it was the number used by his father Davide during his own racing career. So there was something particularly neat about the announcement arriving at 11 o’clock.
The #11.
At 11.
With MotoGP heading towards Misano.
Maybe it is just a nice coincidence.
It does not need to be anything more. The real story is everything that happened between the first time Bulega wore VR46 colours and today.
He did not go backwards. He came back different.
In 2021, Nicolò Bulega left the Grand Prix paddock. He had never won a Moto3 or Moto2 race. The career that once appeared to point naturally towards MotoGP had gone somewhere else.
Five years later, he is coming back. But he did not spend those years standing outside the door waiting for somebody to reopen it. He changed paddocks. Learned another kind of motorcycle. Rebuilt his confidence. Became a World Champion. Turned himself into one of the strongest Superbike riders in the world. Started developing Ducati’s future MotoGP bike.
And now he returns to VR46.
It would be easy to call it a circle closing. Perhaps it is not.
Because Nicolò is not returning to the point where he started.
He is returning to the same place after travelling far enough to no longer be the same person who left it.
In 2027, he will finally become a MotoGP rider.
Not because the original road unfolded exactly as everyone expected.
But because when that road ended, he built another one.
And that is the road that brought him back.
LINK:
Leggi: To Cremona for Alberto Surra: the flag, the support and all the work that comes before Sunday
Guarda: Il reel that announces Nicolò Bulega in VR46
