Nicolo Bulega fights Jerez wildlife on route WorldSBK top spot

Nicolo Bulega says he was “fighting with a bee” during practice at the Jerez WorldSBK.

Bulega topped both sessions on Friday at the final WorldSBK round of the season and did so fairly comfortably. Such was his strength on day one, Iker Lecuona has already dismissed his chances of winning this weekend.

But while it was a simple day on the time sheets for Bulega it was not perfectly straightforward as a bee made its way into his leathers at one point.

“Just I was riding the bike and fighting with a bee in the same moment, at turn eight,” Nicolo Bulega laughed after FP2, speaking to WorldSBK.com.

“Then I just lost two laps because I felt that I had it for two laps [on my neck] running in my leathers, so it was not good to stay focused on the bike. 

“So, I just lost two laps and then when I felt a bit of pain I just continued pushing.”

Despite the incident with the bee, Bulega was happy enough with his performance, even if the track grip felt quite low in what were unusually hot conditions for mid-October, with over 40C of track temperature in FP2.

“Not so bad,” Nicolo Bulega told WorldSBK.com in review of his Friday.

“But I think today the track was not very clean and not a lot of tyre on the asphalt, so it was a bit dirty and it was difficult to find a good pace and a good setup with the bike.”

Bulega also chose not to go out straight after the red flag in FP2 for a crash for Jake Dixon at turn nine that punctured the air fence and therefore required a stoppage for the barriers to be fixed.

“After the red flag I just decided to lose a bit of time inside the garage to arrive at the end of the session with the tyres in good condition,” Bulega explained.

“I just needed to make 21 laps for the race and adjust the bike for 21 laps.”