Now officially a quarter of the way into the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship season, Iker Lecuona's (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) adaptation to his new factory Ducati team and the Panigale V4R continues to show promising signs, with back to back to back P2 hat tricks, his expectation has grown from fighting for the podium, to fighting with his Championship-leading teammate Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) for race wins. The Motul Hungarian Round has proven the closest he’s come to hitting that mark, showing improved tyre management late in races to whittle down the gap to the #11 in front of him across two of the round’s three races.

PODIUM CONSISTENCY: Lecuona’s Race 1 podium to open the weekend marked his 7^th consecutive P2

Lecuona saw lights out in Race 1 from back in P5 after his Tissot Superpole time clocked in eight tenths slower than Bulega’s track record-setting 1’38.094s effort. Bulega went to work in the first three laps, carving out a margin behind him two seconds ahead of Alberto Surra (Motocorsa Racing). By the time Lecuona made his way past the Italian rookie on Lap 7, Bulega was more than 4.2 seconds ahead. Never one to back down, Lecuona started digging, outpacing the #11 on eight of the remaining 14 laps, including four laps where the Spaniard lapped more than a third of a second faster, the biggest margin coming on Lap 11, where #7 clocked in 0.446s faster than Bulega.

WORN TO THE BONE: “In Race 2, the fact is I started to struggle a lot physically… The last seven laps, I started to make a lot of mistakes”

His best shot at a race win came on Sunday morning in the Tissot Superpole Race. After starting from pole, Bulega was swallowed up by the pack and by the entrance to Turn 6, he sat in P6 behind Lecuona in P2. Just then, however, as Sam Lowes (ELF Marc VDS Racing Team) darted in on the inside, Andrea Locatelli (Pata Maxus Yamaha) and he made contact as they both sought the best line for the impending exit of the S-shaped sector of track. The #55’s bike was bumped inwards, colliding with Miguel Oliveira (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team), sending him and the Italian and the Portuguese rider down and bringing out the red flag. At the restart, Bulega started from pole, this time setting sail from pole to flag. Lecuona made up time from being 1.5s down on Lap 4 to nine-tenths on the final lap. To close the weekend, Bulega jumped off the line, but Lecuona hung with him, preventing him from establishing a one-second margin until Lap 9. The #7 continued to fight, holding him within that margin until Lap 14; however, by that point, an exhausted Lecuona’s pace began to subside, finishing the race 2.5s behind his teammate.

“What a surprise, another second place! Jokes aside, I’m happy. I struggled a lot with my energy because I didn’t sleep well on Thursday. In the Superpole Race, if I had two more laps, I would have caught him. I went faster as each race went on. In the longer races, I wanted to try to stay with him, but in Race 2, the fact is I started to struggle a lot physically as I wasn’t able to recover quite as much as I had wanted to between the Superpole Race and Race 2. In the last seven laps, I started making a lot of mistakes. I almost crashed a few times and almost ran through the chicanes. The second place isn’t the result we want, but in any case, it’s perfect for the Championship, the team, and me. Another second, let’s keep working. Every time I jump on the bike, I’m getting closer to Nicolo”

SHOOTOUT FOR P1: “I expect my first victory to be a face-to-face with him, in a real race, fighting with him all race and then winning”

It was no secret that this track would be one of the few where ‘Bulegas’ is more vulnerable, while the Italian was able to defend his race win streak as he extended his 2026 start to a record-breaking 12 consecutive wins. Lecuona is making strides every round. While he has struggled to deal with Bulega’s furious opening laps, in Hungary, he has shown the composure to chip away at that margin and looks forward to the day he can overcome that deficit for his first race win.

On how he views his emergent battle with Bulega, Lecuona said: “Before the red flag, winning was 100% a possibility; my strong point was the braking, and he can’t overtake as easily on that track. On the other hand, I expect my first victory to be a face-to-face with him, in a real race, fighting with him the whole race and then winning. On one hand, I don’t want to say I’m happy not to win, but I just think that it wasn’t my day. He improved his performance here a lot, and we recorded lap records, but he has 4-5 years with this bike, I have just four races, Most will be another round.”

Catch the #7 next time out on May 15^th as the field rides into Most for the Czech Round! Watch Live and OnDemand with the WorldSBK VideoPass! Now 30% off!