Ducati team-mate pace no concern for Nicolo Bulega at Hungarian WorldSBK

Nicolo Bulega is confident of being able to fight for race wins at the Hungarian WorldSBK despite the strong speed of his team-mate Iker Lecuona.

Lecuona was fastest in both practices on Friday, by over 0.2 seconds in FP1 and by 0.1 seconds in FP2. The Spaniard had said on Thursday that he expected to be strong this weekend and possibly in contention for victory, and indicated that level of potential on Friday.

However, looking at the long run pace it’s Bulega with the better consistency, remaining almost always in the high-1m38s and low-1m39s. Lecuona’s good laps were all around this mark, too, but the Spaniard had many more laps than Bulega that seconds off the pace; Lecuona also did three runs to Bulega’s two.

The World Superbike championship leader admitted afterwards that the track is not the best for his riding style, but feels he still has a shot at race wins.

“For sure it’s not one of my best tracks for the layout, for my riding style,” Nicolo Bulega said after FP2 when speaking to WorldSBK.com.

“But anyway I think if you are fast you’re fast everywhere, so I just needed to change a little bit my riding style to this track. Today was a good first day, a good approach, so tomorrow if I can make a step we can fight for the win.

“Honestly, not so bad because last year, Friday I struggled a lot with the feeling with the bike, and this year no,” said Bulega.

“So, I think we make an improvement. 

“I’m quite happy with the feeling – we can adjust something, for sure, because I’m not 100 per cent, but not so bad. 

“So, I’m quite happy with today, I think we can adjust something in the chicane, but in general I feel good.”

Bulega was one of seven Ducati riders in the top-10 in FP2. For Bulega the reason for this is simple.

“I explain that Ducati is a strong bike, we always have a good package,” he said.

“This bike is new, so we don’t have many references, but the bike is born very good, strong bike, so I’m just trying to use it at 110 per cent.”