2026 Hungarian WorldSBK Race 1 Reaction: Bulega takes historic win

Here is footage of Lowes' frustration at the end of Superpole earlier. Having qualified seventh, he is one of the riders to benefit from Lecuona's penalty and will start sixth.

TV replays have confirmed, by the way, that the penalties for Gardner and Lecuona are for impeding Sam Lowes in Superpole. 

If you remember, Lecuona ran wide at the chicane in the final sector on the first lap of his final run. When he slowed between the chicane and the final corner, Gardner stayed behind him but Lowes caught them as he was trying to finish his lap.

Lowes was furiously gesturing as he rode down the pit straight immediately after the incident although at the time it wasn't clear who he was angry with.

Just under half-an-hour out from the start of the race in Balaton and we're looking at the hottest conditions of the weekend so far with 23C air temperature and 40C track temperature, which is comparable to but just a little bit warmer than what we had yesterday afternoon in FP2.

Of course, of the two penalties the more meaningful is that of Lecuona.

The Spaniard ended yesterday feeling like he had a shot at race wins this weekend having topped both practices and shown comparable pace with Nicolo Bulega.

Qualifying fifth was already set to make it a tough ask for Lecuona to beat Bulega today, but starting eighth only increases that challenge.

Lecuona comes into this race 69 points behind Bulega in the championship and on a six-race podium streak. It certainly seems that points gap will grow further today, and the question in Race 1, which is now around 45 minutes away, becomes more about damage limitation for the second factory Ducati rider.

For Bulega, of course, Leucona's penalty further decreases the pressure on his shoulders this afternoon and increases the likelihood of him taking that record-breaking 14th consecutive win that it feels like we've been talking about for over a month - largely because we have, since it became a real possibility after Bulega won Race 2 at Portimao at the end of March.

Lecuona finally gets a representative lap on the board but only P5.

Oliveira bumped off the front row by Montella who goes third. Bautista up to sixth with his latest lap.

Second crash of the weekend for Petrucci, this time at turn one. Yellows will kill some laps, but Petrucci looks okay.

Lecuona gets through all the traffic but he went long in a couple of the hard braking zones on that lap, turn one and turn five, then at the last chicane as well. He bails on it at the end, but still goes up to 18th. Onto his second attempt now.

Riders heading out for their second runs now and Lecuona is about to catch all of them on his first flyer with his second tyre. Remember, he bailed on his first run early.

Lecuona has pitted on his first flying lap and he's bottom of th time sheets after his first run.

Bulega meanwhile, improves further to a 1m38.094s - new lap record for the Italian.

Oliveira seemed to have a fairly solid early benchmark at a 1m38.867s, but Bulega has destroyed that immediately with a 1m38.101s  - he's on provisional pole by 0.6s over Baldassarri who was in his tow.

More or less perfect conditions in Balaton ahead of Superpole with 20C air temperature and 32C track temperature, so about 6C cooler on the ground than what we had in FP2 yesterday.

Welcome to live coverage of today's WorldSBK action from Balaton Park, where Superpole will be getting underway in just under 30 minutes at 11:15 local time.