Glimmer of hope for Iker Lecuona after Nicolo Bulega Czech WorldSBK crash

Iker Lecuona is keen to understand the potential of his teammate, Nicolo Bulega, after the Italian crashed and missed most of the FP2 session at Most.

Bulega’s crash was not an especially heavy one, low-siding at turn one. But he only completed six laps in FP2, around 15 less than some of his rivals, including Lecuona himself, who has finished second to Bulega in the last nine races.

Bulega has been unbeaten in WorldSBK so far this year, in fact since Estoril at the end of last season, but the crash on Friday is the kind of flicker of an opening that a rider like Lecuona has to latch onto at the moment and extract from it all of the positivity it can possibly contain.

“When you lose so much time like Nicolo [Bulega] – he lost a lot of time on track, so he lost the opportunities to improve the bike or to improve himself, the feeling,” Iker Lecuona told WorldSBK.com after FP2 in Czechia.

“We have the luck that we don’t crash – for now! But we have a lot of time on track, I learn every time I jump on the bike and, even today, between the FP1 and FP2 we improved a lot, and during the FP2 I improved a lot the performance, and also my feeling and my confidence in that track.”

For Lecuona, his performance in FP2 was a result of a turnaround that started on Friday morning.

“I’m quite happy because this morning I struggled a lot to be constant on the bike, I don’t feel good at all and I struggled a lot to stop on the changes of direction – it’s not like Balaton, honestly,” he said, referencing his strength in the chicanes at Balaton Park two weeks ago.

“So, we tried to change a little bit the bike between FP1 and FP2. We found something, and then during the FP2 we improved those changes and improved a lot the pace, that’s important for me. 

“So, at the end, with 21 laps [on a tyre] I did 1m31.3s. Was very good, honestly, those steps.

“Let’s see Nicolo [Bulega] because he had a small crash, but I know he has maybe something more – let’s see if he lost a little bit of confidence after the crash, that I don’t think so. 

“Let’s see tomorrow the real potential for him, then for the rest, for sure it’s a few riders that go fast on that track, like the Lowes brothers. Let’s see during Saturday.”

Lecuona’s attention to riders from other manufacturers came after Garrett Gerloff topped the second session on Friday. The Spaniard indicated some skepticism about the Kawasaki riders’ true potential, but he was more convinced by that of Sam Lowes.

“Garrett [Gerloff] put the new tyre at the end, so like always if you put a new tyre – I don’t know what compound he used, but he did the lap time at the end, so we need to check his real performance. 

“I know Bimota drop a lot at the end of the race, that we [Ducati] keep more the performance. 

“Sam [Lowes] keeps more the pace, I think he can stay with us for sure, 100 per cent of the race. 

“For sure will be more tricky to beat Nicolo, or to finish in this second place like always in the last three races, but at least we try it. If we cannot do it, okay, if we finish P3 we finish P3, we don’t really care.”