WorldSBK, Ducati already has Lecuona smiling: "The best feeling in the last five years"

Few laps and on a wet track, but Lecuona already had some positive feelings with the Panigale V4 R during the Jerez test.

Pre-season tests are always important, even more so when there’s a new bike to develop and when a new rider joins the garage. That’s the situation at Aruba.it Racing Ducati, which in 2026 fields a new Panigale V4 R and welcomes Iker Lecuona as Nicolò Bulega’s new teammate. Unfortunately, on the first day of testing at Jerez the conditions weren’t ideal: it rained and, with a wet track, the Spaniard completed only 14 laps, finishing fifth on the overall timesheets.

Interviewed by the official WorldSBK channels, the former Honda HRC rider had this to say about the first of two days of work in Andalusia: "Conditions were quite tricky. We decided to ride on a wet track, since we have a new bike and everything is new for me with this team. The problem was the wind; at times it was a bit dangerous. I did only 12 laps or something like that, but I still felt good, comfortable. I like what I felt. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow; we’ll have more opportunities to test."

Lecuona did few kilometers on the Ducati Panigale V4 R, which he had already tested at Jerez in October, but the very first indications are encouraging: "Conditions were complicated, so it’s hard to draw conclusions. In October I tried the bike and felt pretty good. I worked a lot over the winter with the stock bike and it went well. We’ll see if we can ride in the dry tomorrow and confirm the positive feelings."

Iker is coming off four Superbike seasons with the Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP, a completely different bike with which he had various difficulties: "Today I tried to do some laps to understand how the bike and the electronics worked in the wet. Last year I struggled a lot and in today’s 12 laps I had the best feeling of the last 5 years. I’m happy about that. Tomorrow I’ll try to do a lot of laps and adapt myself to the bike, not adapt the bike to me."