Miguel Oliveira was tenth in the first session of Superbike World Cup free training at Estoril. The fastest was already champion Nicolò Bulega, who thus began the penultimate round of the year in the best way.
© Lusa
09/10/2026
by
Lusa
Miguel Oliveira (BMW) finished today in the tenth position the first free trainings of the Estoril round of the Superbike World Cup, the last race of the World Motorcycling Championship, led by Italian Nicolò Bulega (Ducati), already champion.
Almada's natural pilot completed 17 laps and recorded the best time 1.36.490 minutes, being 0.944 seconds from Bulega, which ran in 1.35.546.
The Italian Alberto Surra (Ducati) finished second, only 0.052 seconds from the countryman, with an improvement in the final part of the session that relegated the Spanish Iker Lecuona (Ducati) to third, to 0.379 from his teammate.
Oliveira came to lead the table of times in the first minutes and ended as the best representative of BMW, in front of Italian Danilo Petrucci, his teammate, which was 17, to 1,392 seconds from Bulega.
Portuguese was 0.110 seconds from the ninth grade, the Italian Yari Montella (Ducati), in a session where the first 12 pilots ended up separated for less than a second.
Nicolò Bulega dictated rhythm
Nicolò Bulega, which secured the world title in the previous round in Cremona, Italy, began the penultimate journey of the season with the best time, while Alberto Surra confirmed the competitiveness demonstrated in the Italian race, where he reached the first podium in the championship.
Lecuona, winner of the three races of Cremona, completed a front trio entirely composed of Ducati drivers.
The British Alex Lowes (Bimota) was fourth, 0.538 seconds from the fastest, followed by the Spanish Xavi Vierge (Yamaha), which also improved in the last minutes to finish fifth, at 0.601.
Vierge relegated the Spanish Álvaro Bautista (Ducati) to sixth, although the two-time world champion achieved his best rating of the season in a first session of free training.
The session took place with dry track and was marked by falls of the British Tommy Bridewell (Ducati), at turn 10, and of the American Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki), at turn seven.
What does the rest of the program hold?
Oliveira returns to the track today, at 3pm, for the second free training of the 11th and penultimate round of the championship.
On Saturday, the Superpole qualification is at 11:15 and the first race at 3:30. On Sunday, the Superpole race starts at 11:10 and the second main race at 3:30.