The 2023 FIM Supersport World Championship is in full swing and it’s looking like a classic season is in prospect. At the Emilia-Romagna Round presentation at the Misano World Circuit “Marco Simoncelli” taking place, it was an opportunity to catch-up with Championship leader Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing WorldSSP Team), to find out how he feels after the opening two rounds of the season and the upcoming challenges of testing and the first European round of the year.

“I'm very happy with the beginning of the Championship because we started with a very good position during the first two races and also in, in Indonesia,” began Bulega, reviewing his start to the 2023 season. “I'm still first in the Championship, so I'm very happy for that. I was training a lot during the winter and the team have done a very good job with my bike because I feel the bike improved from last year. So, I'm very happy for this and I will try to stay on the top of the Championship.”

In 2022, Bulega made his debut in the WorldSSP class and despite being Ducati’s shining light in their comeback year, a race win was the only achievement that eluded him and the Italian manufacturer – the only brand to not win in WorldSSP last year. However, Bulega came into 2023 as the second-highest-placed returnee after Can Oncu (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing), and has hit the ground running. The Championship standings currently see the Italian on top, although the top three are covered by less than 25 points.

Looking ahead to the remainder of the season, Bulega’s next round comes at Assen in the Netherlands, whilst he’ll also attend the Barcelona test at the end of March, prior to the Dutch Round: “The Assen circuit is one that I like a lot and it’s one of my favourite tracks. I expect to be fast there, and I’ll try to be very fast all the weekend. We’ll go to the Barcelona test next week and I think we will just try to understand better how the bike is in Barcelona because last year, my feeling was not so good at this track. So, we will try to do something different and try to be fast.”

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