Superbike: Lecuona changes, a "new" Ducati to take the fight to Bulega

The Spaniard is not completely satisfied with his Friday in France and was also involved in a crash: over the weekend he hopes to go on the attack for the win.

Fifth fastest for Iker Lecuona in the second Superbike free practice session, but he is third in the combined FP1-FP2 standings. In the afternoon he went down at the start of the session, suffering no physical consequences, but returning to the box with a heavily damaged Panigale V4 R. The Aruba.it Ducati team then managed to send him back out, allowing him to continue the planned work. Nicolò Bulega seems to have a little something extra, but the Spaniard is counting on making good use of FP3 to reduce the gap and challenge his teammate as early as Race 1.

The former Honda HRC rider crashed at Turn 11 in the second SBK free practice session and explained how it happened: "I had new tires, we had made some changes to the bike, I was a bit fast and when I tried to pick it up at the first touch of throttle I lost the front. It's a typical crash that can happen, although honestly I didn't expect it. I was fairly calm, but a bit too fast. Physically no problem, it's more a matter of confidence at that point on the track. Compared to Nicolò I was losing a bit there."

Lecuona and his team are trying something different than usual on his Ducati Panigale V4 R, also taking inspiration from what he did in his MotoGP appearances: "Today I struggled a bit. We tried a slightly different base, we need to work. It was important to understand the updates we introduced. I pushed my crew chief to do it, because in the standings Nicolò is too far ahead and Montella is far from me. It’s time to find the last tenths compared to Nicolò and to do that I have to try something different on the bike. In MotoGP I tried something different from my standard base, I liked it and I thought, 'Why can't I try it here as well?' There are some positives and other areas to improve."

Iker wants to be at Bulega’s level, fight with him and try to beat him; he’s ready to do whatever it takes to achieve his goal: "In the morning we had a bike quite different from Donington and then over the course of the day we made some adjustments. I think we still need to work on braking, where I'm normally very strong and instead today I struggled a bit in the first part of corner entry. We’re focused on this. On the flying lap I was missing something, but the race pace is similar and I’m fairly calm. I’m confident I can be with Nicolò."