Bulega Rules Hungarian WorldSBK
S
ometimes you have to sit
back and admire just how
good some people and things
are. Like it or not, even if you
miss the endless Toprak ver-
sus Bulega battles of last year,
or really miss the Rea versus
Razgatlioglu versus Bautista
battles from a few years before
that, we are all having to sit back
and watch the latest Ducati V4 R
and the new great one with red
leathers do their thing.
Nicolo Bulega's closest chal-
lenger is increasingly becoming
his own new Aruba.it Racing
Ducati teammate, Iker Lecuona,
who is now so confident in his
bike, he sees saving slides that
led to near crashes in practice,
as a positive thing.
Once again, after the domina-
tion shown in Australia, Portugal
and the Netherlands, we can only
sit back and wonder how Bulega
can win at will and how other rid-
ers not on Ducatis are finding any
kind of consistency, an impossi-
bly capricious characteristic.
There were real and often
too-real battles at Balaton in
Hungary for round three, but they
were going on away from the
true podium perfectionists.
In Superpole qualifying, Bulega
delivered a record-breaking per
-
formance (thanks to a 1:38.094
lap) to secure his 13th WorldSBK
Superpole "win," giving him the
best possible starting position.
He was 0.608 of a second ahead
of surprise package Lorenzo Bal-
dassarri (GoEleven Ducati), who
had his first front-row start in this
category.
After seven Ducatis led the
opening day at Balaton, seeing
Miguel Oliveira in fourth place in
Superpole, on a BMW, was a glim-
mer of hope for the first race's
cosmopolitan possibilities.
The Ducati Cup mantra is in
full chorus once again, to the
surprise of no one. And the cho
-
WIND
IN THE
P62
Nicolo Bulega won
everything in sight at
the Hungarian round
of the WorldSBK
Championship.
PHOTOS:
GOLD & GOOSE
