him reach the new milestone in the
class of 28 wins in a single year.
Second was Lecuona, and third
was Surra, but only after he dis-
placed Oliveira in the last lap, and
showed enough racecraft to keep
him behind at the flag.
Fifth was Bautista, and sixth
Bassani on the other bimota.
The final race went to Bulega
for his 29th win this season, fol-
lowed by Lecuona and Surra. An
unmissable good news story (but
finally, not quite) was the almost
certain podium ride for the often
luckless Alvaro Bautista—until he
fell from third place and gifted the
place to the advancing Surra.
We had three identical podiums
in Estoril, but having Surra there
three times felt like some kind of
changing of the guard.
Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki
WorldSBK Team) had a tough
weekend but scored seventh in
race two. His weekend stats read
11th in Superpole, 10th in race
one, 18th in the Superpole race
and seventh in race two.
"I am so disappointed with my-
self after the Superpole race," Gerl-
off said. "I thought maybe we had a
chance to get into the top nine, but
on the first lap I just couldn't stop,
went in too deep and off the track.
Then I did the same thing on the
VOLUME 63 ISSUE 41 OCTOBER 13, 2026 P51
Alvaro Bautista (19) was
on for a podium in race
two until he dropped the
Ducati with just a few laps
remaining.
The opening WorldSSP race was a
cracker with Tom Booth-Amos (69)
getting the win by a whisker over
teammate Oli Bayliss (32).
