Nicolo Bulega will line up on the MotoGP grid in 2027, and he will do it in the colours of the team that gave him his first world championship break. Ducati has confirmed the WorldSBK runaway leader as a Pertamina Enduro VR46 rider, completing its six-rider premier-class roster for the first season of the 850cc, Pirelli-shod era — and the Bulega MotoGP move has been sealed at arguably the most forgiving moment in recent history for a newcomer.
The 26-year-old has been beaten in just one of the 27 World Superbike races run so far this season and is champion-elect with rounds to spare. This week the last administrative obstacle fell away, with Ducati’s Aruba.it Racing squad confirming that it and Bulega will part ways at the end of 2026.
Why the Bulega MotoGP switch is timed almost perfectly
The obvious cautionary tale is Toprak Razgatlioglu. The Turk won the 2025 WorldSBK title, was the only rider capable of beating Bulega in a two-year duel, and has found his rookie MotoGP season with Pramac Yamaha hard going. But the comparison flatters Bulega rather than warning him, because Razgatlioglu had to absorb several changes at once: a new championship, a new team, Michelin tyres he had never raced, and a Yamaha in the earliest stages of its switch to a V4 engine.
Bulega faces a shorter list. MotoGP moves to Pirelli control tyres in 2027 — the rubber he has been racing throughout his Superbike career, and which will be unfamiliar to almost everyone else on the grid. The 850cc Desmosedici will be new to him, but it will be new to Marc Marquez too. And Ducati is no further down the development road with its 2027 prototype than Aprilia, KTM, Honda or Yamaha are with theirs.
VR46 team manager Pablo Nieto thinks that combination removes most of the friction. “We complete next year’s line-up with Nicolo Bulega, a rider who always proved to be very talented and determined,” Nieto said. “His journey has not been always easy, but he is dominating the WorldSBK: he proved to deserve a place in MotoGP.”
“Next year the regulation will change, and we will all start from zero,” he added. “For sure, his experience with the WorldSBK tyres and the test with the new Ducati Desmosedici GP as a Ducati test rider will help him adapting well to the new category and making this journey as easy as possible. We trust him and we know he will be able to fight for the most important goals.”
That test-rider role matters. Bulega has spent 2026 helping Ducati develop the 850cc machine alongside a Superbike title campaign, which means he arrives with laps on the bike rather than a first impression still to form in pre-season. He also has a small but real slice of premier-class experience: he made his MotoGP debut last season as a stand-in for the injured Marc Marquez in the closing rounds.
“I’ve always been linked to them”: why VR46, and why now
Bulega had options inside the Ducati family. He chose the squad he grew up in.
“Making it to MotoGP is a dream, because I will make my debut with the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team,” he said. “I chose this team because I’ve always been linked to them: I was in the VR46 Riders Academy when I was a child, so I know everyone very well. So, making this step with people I know is easier from a human perspective. Moreover, they are all extremely professional.”
“When I started to race, I had the dream of arriving to MotoGP,” he continued. “Then, for many reasons, my career took a different path: I moved to WorldSBK, where I focused on building a successful career.”
There is a neat symmetry to the timing. Bulega’s move to World Supersport in 2022 coincided with the first year of the ‘Next Generation’ rules that made machines such as Ducati’s Panigale V2 eligible — a regulatory reset he went on to exploit ruthlessly. He now steps up to grand prix racing for another one.
A career that went the long way round
The tidy version of this story is a Superbike ace being promoted. The real one is considerably messier, which is what makes the return to Valentino Rossi’s team read as vindication rather than routine.
Bulega arrived in the world championship in 2016 as the reigning CEV Moto3 champion, took two podiums and finished seventh overall as a VR46 rookie. Then it unravelled. He slipped to 12th the following season and 26th the one after. Convinced his height and weight were holding him back on a Moto3 bike, VR46 promoted him to Moto2 for 2019, where he managed only 17th in the standings before leaving Rossi’s operation for 2020.
Results did not improve, and by 2022 the World Supersport switch was a genuine make-or-break. He was immediately quick on the Ducati, dominated the 2023 championship, then won on his WorldSBK debut at Phillip Island in 2024 — the start of that two-season fight with Razgatlioglu. With the Turk gone to MotoGP and an updated Panigale V4 R underneath him, 2026 has been a procession.
Aruba.it Racing team principal Stefano Cecconi was unusually warm in marking the departure. “When we chose Nicolo, we knew we were investing in a young rider with great talent, but the journey we have shared has continued to exceed expectations,” he said. “His progression makes us particularly proud because it confirms the team’s philosophy: believing in hard work, in riders’ growth, and in the ability to build important results step-by-step.”
“Nicolo has integrated into the team exceptionally well and become part of our sporting family,” Cecconi added. “He has earned everyone’s trust and affection through professionalism and respect. We will always be grateful to him and will always cheer for him.”
What it means for VR46 and Ducati in 2027
Bulega’s arrival completes a total refresh at VR46. Fabio di Giannantonio is leaving for KTM, and the team has already confirmed Franco Morbidelli’s departure, so both of its 2026 riders are moving on. Bulega will be partnered by Fermin Aldeguer, stepping across from Gresini.
Zoom out and the Ducati camp’s 2027 line-up is striking for one reason: Bulega is the only Italian in it. According to Crash.net, he lines up alongside a bloc of Spaniards in Marc Marquez, Pedro Acosta, Joan Mir, Dani Holgado and Aldeguer. For a factory that has built much of its modern identity on Italian riders aboard Italian bikes, that is a notable shift — and it places a certain weight on a man who spent three seasons looking as though he had missed his chance altogether.
The deal had been an open secret since the spring; ReadMotorSport reported in July that Ducati and VR46 were edging closer to the move. Confirmation lands in the week the paddock arrives at Misano, where Jorge Martin defends a narrow championship lead from Marquez and Marco Bezzecchi at the San Marino Grand Prix on 11-13 September.
First, though, there is unfinished business. As Cecconi put it, “there is still one mission to complete” — a WorldSBK title that is, barring catastrophe, already Bulega’s.
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