Tough showdown at Ducati: Bulega already a threat, Lecuona chasing the missing tenths

Lecuona didn’t get the results he dreamed of in his Ducati debut, but he wants to raise the bar in the upcoming Superbike rounds.

Phillip Island is Nicolò Bulega’s favorite track, and his hat-trick of wins in the opening round of WorldSBK 2026 comes as no surprise. He had already done it in 2025, and between tests and free practice he had shown he had more than anyone else, so it’s no surprise there wasn’t a rider able to challenge him. His new teammate Iker Lecuona wanted to do so, but he’s not yet at the level needed to trouble him.

He arrived in Australia without having done enough testing to adapt to the new Ducati Panigale V4 R, and he probably still needs time to fully understand how to exploit the Bolognese bike. Over a single lap he didn’t shine (thirteenth time in Superpole), and this is certainly an area to improve. Race 1, finished in sixth place, was the Spaniard’s best outing, followed by ninth in the Superpole Race and eighth in Race 2 (in the wet).

The former Honda HRC rider’s Superpole Race was affected by contact right after the start; he dropped to the back of the pack, which prevented him from achieving a much better result: "I had a good start in the Superpole Race - he said - but in Turn 1 a Yamaha rider came at me too fast, I had to pick the bike up and ran wide, off the track. I was last in Turn 2 and my goal became to reach P9. The pace was really good and the bike was working well, I started to go very fast. I had podium pace, but I had to come back through the field and I found a way to finish ninth, overtaking two riders on the last lap".

The wet Race 2 was very complicated for Lecuona, who didn’t feel comfortable riding the Ducati Panigale V4 R in those conditions: "I’m a bit frustrated, honestly. I don’t want to talk about the position, but about my feeling with the bike, which was the worst I’ve had since the beginning. It was very difficult to ride, I had no feeling with the rear tire and in the wet that makes it even more complicated. I almost crashed 15 times during the race. I was frustrated by those sensations I had. Anyway, we should be happy with the progress we made from the test to the race weekend. It’s the first time in a few years that I’ve finished the Australia round without crashing, that’s positive."

The Valencian rider is trying to stay optimistic for the future; he’s convinced the rest of the 2026 Superbike season will be more positive for him: "By working step by step we’ll get there, we have the speed and we need to put the pieces together. We have to work to find the last tenths to be up front. My rating for my first weekend as an Aruba Ducati rider? 7 out of 10".

The next SBK 2026 round will be at Portimao on the weekend of March 27–29 and will be preceded by a test at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve, a great opportunity for Lecuona to improve his feeling with the Ducati Panigale V4 R: "If it rains, I’ll definitely do 50 or 100 laps to understand what happened in Race 2 and to learn, since I had no potential. If it doesn’t rain, which I hope, we’ll keep working on the pace and getting to know the bike. At Phillip Island we were missing a few tenths in some parts of the track; I think we can work on that effectively at Portimao, even if the track will be completely different. We’ll arrive better prepared for the race weekend, I’m confident I can fight for the podium if everything goes well".