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The drama of the second half of the 2024 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship has hit new levels as Championship leader Toprak Razgatlioglu (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) will not participate in the Acerbis Italian Round at the Cremona Circuit. At the start of September, his lead was 92 points and he was coming back from holidays on a run of 13 consecutive race wins; he’ll now have missed the last six races by the time Cremona’s first-ever WorldSBK round is completed and perhaps lost his hard-earnt Championship lead.

WHAT IT MEANS: Bulega with a golden opportunity in Toprak’s absence

Suddenly, it’s back to game on in the 2024 WorldSBK season for Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati), the rookie who ripped up the form book in testing and his first WorldSBK race. He dropped the ball at the first time of asking at Magny-Cours in Race 1 but more than made up for it on Sunday with a double win, inflicting maximum damage. Now, he must do the same again; having hauled himself back to within a round’s worth of points away, the reigning WorldSSP Champion – who has shown little struggles in his adaptation – now gets to enjoy the pleasure of arriving to a circuit where it’s very much a level playing field. No prior race experience, will Cremona be the stage where the #11 can take the Championship lead?

THE MATHS: 55 points to make up, a triple suffices

The maths is easy; three wins for Bulega and he leads the Championship. Three second-places will put him close but not quite in the lead, six points adrift. Even that would make it in Bulega’s favour in terms of momentum going to Aragon, where Ducati have been so strong before. A triple is a tough ask but in a season where he’s finished second to Toprak on nine occasions, it’s more than likely that Bulega inherits the title lead in the #54’s absence. However, it’s worth noting that Bulega himself is not at absolutely 100% fitness, following his own Race 1 crash at Magny-Cours, although it didn’t stop him on Sunday. In terms of what’s the minimum Bulega can do, podiums are a must. Third place on three occasions at Cremona will put him 16 behind Toprak, perhaps not quite close enough to be convincing unless Razgatlioglu is out of Aragon. What is absolutely crucial for Bulega is that he doesn’t squander the opportunity; crashes and unforced errors are completely out of the question. Points make prizes.

TEAM ORDERS: will Bautista play second fiddle at Cremona?

Cremona is a city known for violins but will the reigning double World Champion be instructed to not get involved of Bulega’s clear opportunity? It all depends whether Alvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) races: he needs to be declared fit on Thursday and then, it is all about how much pain he has and how competitive he can be. Whilst a return is perhaps more likely than not, Cremona is a circuit that the Spanish star didn’t warm to in the test back in May. If he rides, will he even be able to take points off rivals to help Bulega? More questions than answers, mainly because we don’t have any until the green lights at 14:00 local time on Saturday.

BMW’S PERSPECTIVE: time for their riders to help out their fallen leader

Michael van der Mark’s (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) turn of form couldn’t have come at a better moment, with a victory at Magny-Cours keeping BMW’s presence on the top of the rostrum alive for another day. Then, Garrett Gerloff’s (Bonovo Action BMW) fantastic P3 in Race 2 and teammate Scott Redding’s fourth after crashing in Race 1 means that big points were taken by riders on Toprak’s side as well as those not directly in combat with him. The same must be done at Cremona: Van der Mark, Gerloff and Redding must try to get in amongst the act at the front and disrupt the momentum of Bulega, lending a huge favour to Razgatlioglu. Previous testing at Cremona will give them a base but Bulega has likewise been there. It’s also worth noting that Markus Reiterberger – someone with huge experience of the BMW M 1000 RR – will replace Razgatlioglu for the round.

IN CONCLUSION: four rounds in five weeks and a huge climax pending

Of all the times to get injured, the big run-in at the end of the year was not the time for Razgatlioglu. If the injury had occurred back at Portimao, perhaps he’d have missed no additional rounds. However, what’s done is done and speculation is all well and good but there’s only one certainty: the 2024 WorldSBK season’s final third is going to be electric. One of Ducati’s most successful circuits at Aragon is next up after Cremona, before Estoril returns and Jerez closes of the season, both circuits which both Razgatlioglu in past years, as well as Ducati, have been strong at.

It’s all building to one great big dust off – if Bulega can make hay whilst the sun shines down on him. If it’s close going to Aragon, or even if Bulega’s leading the Championship, we can expect the title race to go the distance. 248 points up for grabs in the next 12 races and four rounds and in little over a month, someone will be crowned Champion. The questions are who, where, how and when. There may well be plenty more twists to be had in this Championship story that you just couldn’t script.

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