Superbike already one-sided? Bulega tops weather-hit test

Nicolò Bulega was the fastest in the 2026 Superbike appetizer at Jerez: at the end of two days plagued by bad weather, Ducati made its presence felt. Will it be a one-way World Championship?

The weather system that hit Andalusia made life quite complicated for the teams involved in the first outing of the year. Exactly one month before the World Championship kicks off at Phillip Island, between one downpour and the next, the riders were able to run on a dry track for just over two hours. A very limited window, almost a simple shakedown. Nicolò Bulega completed just 24 laps before suffering a low-side at turn five that ended his day’s work, as the rain started again at the same time. It’s the very spot of the brutal “tap” on Toprak Razgatlioglu which, in last October’s finale, nearly reopened the championship in sensational fashion before it ultimately fell into the hands of the BMW ace.

Many fear that with the Turk heading off to MotoGP shores, Superbike ’26 will be a Bulega monologue. It’s obviously too early to tell—certainly not after a meager half-day of winter testing. But it’s clear that Jerez is Nicolò’s home turf and that the new Ducati Panigale V4 R, with the double-sided swingarm, is already at a very advanced stage of development. The lap times, of course, don’t mean much; they’re significantly slower than the best at this track. But it’s the gap to the rivals that still gives pause...

With all due caveats, we should still highlight the fine performance of a rapidly rising Bimota, with Alex Lowes finishing just 119 thousandths behind the Ducati pacesetter. With the same Rimini-built, factory Kawasaki-powered bike, Axel Bassani starts off with the seventh time, six tenths off the leader: they’ll need to step it up to climb back after a very difficult 2025 and try to shake up the now well-established hierarchy in the box.

The bare standings show Xavi Vierge, in his second outing with Yamaha, ahead of team leader Andrea Locatelli, with Stefano Manzi ninth and just two thousandths behind the Bergamasque rider. The reigning Supersport world champion from Rimini is beginning to feel at home on the YZF-R1. Work in progress too for the duo Danilo Petrucci and Miguel Oliveira, who replace King Toprak at BMW: for them, an afternoon of data acquisition, ahead of unleashing the German horsepower in the next test at Portimão in a few days. In this odd afternoon with the M1000RR, test rider Michael van der Mark was faster. In the wet the day before, Petrucci had been untouchable, though he did suffer a slide.

With the advantage of an extra day of testing, but still not at his physical best after last October’s injury, Jonathan Rea, Honda’s new test rider, went faster than Jake Dixon, the former Moto2 rider who got acquainted with the CBR-RR at the end of November, suffering a series of crashes. With Somkiat Chantra absent due to a training injury at Sepang, Honda HRC will have to hope that old Johnny still feels like twisting the throttle the right way.

The final times from the Jerez test