SBK Magny Cours: Lecuona stands his ground and Bulega wins the hard way

Credit to Iker Lecuona for being hard-headed. But when the lieutenant cranks up the fighting spirit, Commander Bulega draws his sabre and puts things back in order. The Superpole Race lasted only three laps; the Spaniard’s “desperate” late-braking was useless. Nicolò repelled the assault and flew undisturbed to his 25th win of the year, out of 26.

Lecuona made the first move on the opening pass through the Adelaide hairpin, and on the next lap Bulega hit back tit for tat at the very same spot. On the third lap Lecuona went all-in like there was no tomorrow, managing to slip the Ducati by a whisker ahead. But in the switchback of lines, Bulega came out on top. In the following corner, Le Mans, Bulega defended tooth and nail, forcing the other to run off line and lose those two seconds that definitively broke the race apart.

An important detail: with a clear track, Bulega set a new all-time Magny-Cours record, 1'34"750. An astonishing benchmark for three reasons: 1) the win was already in the bag, so Nicolò had no need to push to this level; 2) It’s not a tire matter, because in the Sprint the front-runners all started with the same SC1 front–SCX rear combo as the long race; 3) Bulega lapped faster than Toprak Razgatlioglu did in qualifying a year ago! These three factors point us to the conclusion: Bulega manages his Superbike rivals entirely at will. When Lecuona attacks hard, he raises the bar and changes gears. In short: when he wants to go, he goes. His rivals, Lecuona included, can only hope this season ends soon: in 2027 Bulega will be in MotoGP with the Ducati 850 at the VR46 team.

Sam Lowes’ slide, when he already had third place in the bag, ended with a trip to the medical center. Unfortunately, that’s how he is: he’s fast but always walking a tightrope. The mistake flung the podium door wide open for Yari Montella, who hadn’t shone in Race 1 but found a way to make the Barni team’s Ducati less physical to ride. Behind him, an excellent Alberto Surra: the Motocorsa rookie had already shown great things in qualifying, but was missing the big race result. “It’ll take two years to reach the podium,” Lorenzo Mauri keeps saying. But his rider is working to shorten the timeline.

Attention: the final race at Magny-Cours has been moved up to 2:00 PM to avoid overlapping with the F1 Italian GP at Monza, which starts at 3:00 PM. The race distance is 21 laps. Remember that Iker Lecuona’s second place in Race 1 prevents Nicolò Bulega from clinching the World Championship here in France. We’ll talk about it again in three weeks in Cremona. This championship never really got started and will be wrapped up very soon...

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