Ducati rider hails “special” Hungary WorldSBK podium after early-season rebuild

A Race 2 podium at the Hungarian WorldSBK was “special” for Yari Montella after an up-and-down start to the 2026 season.

Montella was third in Race 2, behind the two factory Ducatis but ahead of Lorenzo Baldassarri who had been third in the Superpole Race. It was his first World Superbike podium since Race 1 at Phillip Island and came at a circuit Montella had struggled at in 2025.

“I feel happy, because it was something special,” Yari Montella told WorldSBK.com after Race 2 in Hungary.

“Podium after Phillip Island, here in Balaton that it’s not one of my favourite tracks, it’s something more because it means that we worked really good. 

“We made a good job because at the end, after Portimao, after two crashes, we used Assen to start to build my feeling again on the bike. 

“Here also, we started from FP1 to start to build my feeling in this track, and then session-by-session we improve. 

“So, so happy, so proud about my team, about the work that we’ve done in the garage.”

Montella explained that he’d needed to make a step in order to achieve that podium in Race 2 after missing pace compared to Baldassarri in the Superpole Race.

“After the [Superpole Race] I saw the lap times of Balda [Lorenzo Baldassarri], I think was not on our range,” Montella said.

“Then after the Superpole Race we made something different on the bike, we changed something, and we changed also the rhythm. 

“The Superpole Race was quite strange because the first start I missed the first turn, I was ride. 

“At the end, I was behind, try to build the race. The second start, the start was good, then Balda overtook me in a hard move and I lost some positions. 

“In the Superpole Race it was difficult to overtake again the other riders; I had my team-mate Alvaro [Bautista] in front of me and I struggled a little bit.”

Baldassarri actually helped Montella in Race 2 when he went wide with Alvaro Bautista at turn 15 on the first lap, allowing the Barni rider into third place.

“In Race 2, I saw the chaos of the first lap and I used this chaos to open a gap because [on lap one] Balda overtook someone, they were wide, I had a free way and I said ‘Now I need to push to try to see what happens’,” Montella said.

“I started to push some laps to open the gap. 

“Fortunately, at the end, I had a gap to manage, [even] if we struggled a bit with the rear tyre with the grip on the left side. Anyway, we took home an important podium, so happy for that.”