The 2025 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship season opener at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit has been the Nicolo Bulega show so far. While he has now gone five-for-five in Free Practices, with plenty of impressive times, the Italian sophomore rider is maintaining his focus on the races and Tissot Superpoles to come. Warmer weather and less wind is in the forecast for this weekend, which may shake up the results to come, however so far it has been a dominant display.

Across both Free Practices Nicolo Bulega sped up throughout the sessions, posting his fastest lap of 1’28.790s, 17 laps into his 24 of FP2. Bulega has thrived down under before, last year setting a track record of 1’27.916s  in last year’s Tissot Superpole session. Reflecting on his performance so far in Australia, Nicolo Bulega maintains that while he has been untouchable this weekend, there is still more he and his Ducati factory team can get out of their Panigale V4R platform.

“Day 1 was very good, we tried to improve a little from testing and I think we improved, not everything we tried, but some little improvements but I am happy for my feeling today. “said Bulega “We have to see about the track temperature which will be even higher tomorrow and if we will change some things about the bike and the riding style. There may be some big changes because into the afternoon I felt the track temperature getting hotter, so we may have some issues with that but we will try. I am happy with my race pace today, we had good race pace but this afternoon the feeling was not as good as this morning. We have to study the data from this afternoon well to understand what we have to do.

Bulega this season will look to complete the dream that only the likes of Toprak Razgatlioglu was able to keep from him, being named the Riders’ Champion. While Toprak has been slower so far this season between ironing out the issues with their now M 1000 RR and recovering from his offseason finger injury, Bulega spoke on the quality of the other riders in the paddock around him and the challenge they pose.

“Not winning tomorrow wouldn’t be disappointing, because testing is testing, but racing is different, there are more things you have to control, especially considering we have the flag to flag.” Said Bulega, “It is one more thing you have to pay attention to. I am in the left position to change the tires in the pit lane, so it is more difficult because I need to make a left turn, then a left turn in the pit lane with each team’s mechanics and crew in the way. I think there are lots of fast riders, maybe right now me, then Iannone, Toprak, Alvaro, Petrucci, Locatelli, so there are lots that can be around the podium.”

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