2026 Dutch WorldSBK Race 1 As It Happened: Bulega keeps win streak going

Bulega pushing the pace at the front now and Sam Lowes is dropping off the front two. He's still over a second clear of Bautista in fourth, though.

Alex Lowes still fifth, then Petrucci before serving his long laps.

Bulega to the front now, he made the move on Lecuona between turns 10 and 11. Lowes sticking with them on the Marc VDS bike.

Petrucci has a double long lap for jumping the start. He's seventh at the moment.

Lowes lost his right front wing in that battle with Bautista.

Lecuona leads lap one, then it's Bulega and Lowes.

Alex Lowes up to fourth at the final chicane but Bautista passed him back at turn one. They're over a second behind the podium battle now.

Riders are off on their warm-up lap for Race 1. Conditions far from stable but dry for now.

It's clear that Nicolo Bulega is the favourite for victory this afternoon, but who will be on the podium beside him is far less obvious.

Lecuona and Lowes should be in the mix from the front row, of course, but then there are three strong riders on row two, as well, with Petrucci, Vierge, and Lowes leading the charge behind the top three Ducatis.

Alvaro Bautista is also there in seventh, and at a high tyre wear circuit like this his traditional late race charge could be especially potent this afternoon.

Miguel Oliveira was on the podium in all three races in Portugal three weeks ago, but qualified down in 13th this morning so it will be a tough ask for him to keep that rostrum streak going today.

Nicolo Bulega starts on pole for the third time this season. Ducati also completed their third front row lockout from three this morning with Sam Lowes second and Iker Lecuona third.

The full starting order for Race 1 is below.

Still 25 minutes before the start of Race 1 in Assen but we're currently looking at dry and cloudy conditions with 15C air and 22C track temperature, so almost exactly the same as what we had this morning for Superpole.

In case you missed it earlier, an FP3 crash for Somkiat Chantra resulted in injuries that ruled him out of Saturday's action at Assen.

You can check the full report on Chantra's injury here.

Footage of the crash, on the exit of turn five, is below.

Just over 40 minutes to go until Race 1 gets underway and the weather has stayed largely the same since Superpole ran in the dry. However, there were spots of rain before the WorldWCR race earlier on as well as during the Supersport race that just finished.

Rain is forecast throughout this afternoon, but what effect the weather will have on Race 1 is impossible to judge at the moment.

Here's a look at final corner in the Supersport race.

The World Supersport race has just concluded in typically dramatic fashion.

Jaume Masia takes the win with a last chicane move on Arenas.

Booth-Amos put a similar move on Mahias for third. Debise passed them both on the drag to the line, but did so by going off-track, so will probably be penalised.

Just classic SSP chaos.

Welcome back to live coverage of today's WorldSBK action from Assen, where Race 1 will be coming up in just under and hour at 15:30 local time.

Bulega has crashed at turn one. That's his first crash of the season, but it's not going to cost him pole position.

Sam Lowes now back up to second, so that bumps Petrucci off the front row and down to fourth.

Petrucci up to third for BMW and into the 1m32s, Alex Lowes up from ninth to fifth, too, and Bautista goes from 10th to sixth.

And here comes Bulega, 1m32.144 is a colossal lap from the Italian and it puts him 0.423s clear of his teammate. Almost into the 1m31s now.

Lecuona to provisional pole with the first lap of his second run, and a 1m32.567s is a new lap record.

Vierge behind him goes up to third, great lap from the Yamaha rider. That's the best ever lap for an R1 at Assen.

Bulega back to third now but he's yet to set a time on his second run.