After the opening three rounds, Aruba. it Ducati had a firm hold at the top end of the championship with Nicolo Bulega sitting on thirteen successive wins stretching back into Season 2025 and wingman Iker Lecuona comfortable in second place in his first season on a competitive bike after years on the underperforming WorldSBK Honda. Behind them, Sam Lowes, best of the independents and sole ELF Marc VDS Ducati entry, was the most consistent and sat in a well-deserved third spot on the table. None of the other challengers, including Oliveira, Bautista and Montella, seemed to be able to string together a good run across rounds, instead mixing encouraging results with equally discouraging ones.
SUPERPOLE SPRINT Would Balaton Park roll differently? In short, no. Turn one at Balaton Park is guaranteed to bunch riders up on the first lap and four chicanes can lead to some very close encounters. But Bulega won all three races to extend his winning run to a record-breaking sixteen successive wins, although he was lucky that his winning streak didn’ t end with Sunday’ s Tissot Superpole Sprint race. He fluffed the start of the ten-lapper and dropped more places trying to regain lost ground. The race had barely got underway and he was back in the pack in a position that he likely would not have been able to recover from quickly enough to mount a challenge for the lead.
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