Nicolo Bulega reeled off a third consecutive treble as the championship leader cruised to victory in the final WorldSBK race at Assen.
Despite a difficult start, Bulega ended up cruising to victory as he extended his championship advantage to 69 points.
To complete the podium spots, Bulega was once again joined by Iker Lecuona and Sam Lowes, making it another Ducati 1-2-3.
Marc VDS rider Lowes took the lead into Turn 2 after a minor error from polesitter Bulega into Turn 1, allowing the Lincolnshire rider and Lecuona through.
The first lap saw Lowes maintain the lead and Lecuona eyed a potential move at the fast Turn 5, but he ran in slightly too hot which allowed Lowes to scrap his way back in the lead.
The Spaniard made the move into Turn 1 on Lap 3, before his team-mate Bulega divebombed Lowes into Turn 3.
The factory Ducati duo gained a multiple-tenth advantage over Lowes into the next few corners, before Bulega took the lead in the final corner that same lap.
The championship leader kept his cool waiting for the perfect opportunity, before formulating a 0.5s gap by the end of Lap 4.
Behind the lead trio, Alvaro Bautista once again overtook Bimota rider Alex Lowes to take fourth place on the Barni Spark Ducati.
There was a lack of overtakes over the next portion of the race, but one rider who worked his way through the ranks was Yari Montella who dispatched Lowes on Lap 8.
As a result, Ducati held all the top five scoring positions at the halfway point, showing its dominance around the Drenthe roads.
GoEleven’s Lorenzo Baldassarri was the next rider to overtake Lowes, making it six different Ducatis in the top six.
The British rider was increasingly under threat with Yamaha’s Xavi Vierge waiting in the wings, though no move materialised just yet.
After tailing behind for the next few laps, Vierge overtook the Bimota into Turn 7, before BMW’s Danilo Petrucci followed.
Out front, by Lap 13, Bulega had formulated a two-second gap to his team-mate, before Lecuona reduced the deficit to 1.7s by the end of Lap 15.
The Italian cruised home to seal a fourth consecutive treble and his third of the 2026 campaign, equalling Toprak Razgatlioglu’s record of 13 straight wins in the process.
Lecuona managed to finish second place once again to seal his sixth consecutive podium since joining the Bologna manufacturer.
Lowes rounded off the Assen round with a trio of podiums for Marc VDS, crossing the line two seconds behind Lecuona.
Bautista secured fourth place in a carbon copy result to the first two races, having fended off a late charge from team-mate Montella.
Baldassarri and GoEleven claimed sixth place to end the weekend’s proceedings, followed by Yamaha duo Vierge and Andrea Locatelli.
Petrucci finished ninth as the lead BMW rider, finishing ahead of Tarran Mackenzie and Bimota’s Lowes.
Miguel Oliveira completed the round in 12th place, followed by Axel Bassani and the GRT Yamaha duo of Remy Gardner and Stefano Manzi.
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