Bulega steals the show again in Race 1 at Most setting new records with Pirelli

· Bulega unstoppable series and Debise’s fourth time. Nicolò Bulega (Ducati) remains unbeaten, since the start of the season, winning Race 1 of the WorldSBK Czech Round in Most. Starting from pole, the Italian rider won a race interrupted by a red flag, crossing the finish line ahead of team-mate Iker Lecuona and Yari Montella, in an all-Ducati podium. Meanwhile, France’s Valentin Debise, starting from sixth on the grid in WorldSSP Race 1, took his ZXMOTO to the fourth win of the season, ahead of the Yamahas duo, pole-sitter Can Öncü, second, and Albert Arenas, third. Matteo Vannucci (Aprilia) completed the winners’ line-up by winning the opening race of the SportBike World Championship weekend.

· A largely unanimous tyre choice. In WorldSBK Race 1, all riders opted for the front soft SC1 compound and, in almost every case, paired it with the rear D0922 medium development, with the only exceptions being Alex Bassani (Bimota) and Yuki Kunii (Honda), who opted for the new F0468 medium specification. In WorldSSP too, all riders chose to race with the front soft SC1 compound, mostly paired with the rear soft SC0.

· All-time lap records. In WorldSBK qualifying, where all riders used soft-compound tyres, with front SC1 and rear SC0, Bulega claimed pole in 1’29.616, a new all-time lap record that improves Razgatlioğlu’s previous benchmark set in 2024 (1’30.064) by 0.448 seconds. Runner-up Yari Montella (Ducati Barni Spark Racing Team) also lapped below the old record. In WorldSSP, Öncü took pole with a new all-time lap record in 1’33.802, cutting more than three tenths off Montella’s 2024 record time (1’34.126), while Valentin Debise (ZXMOTO), winner of WorldSSP Race 1, set the new fastest race lap in 1’34.336 on the final lap.

New records and highly convincing tyre performance
 
“These first two days at Most were marked by fairly low air and track temperatures, along with a bit of rain toward Friday’s end, which certainly did not help the track’s evolution. Even so, tyre performance was consistently very convincing, both in terms of flying lap pace – as the new all-time lap records set in both classes proved -, and of race distance, with Debise scoring the new fastest race lap on the very last lap. In both WorldSBK and WorldSSP, the front soft SC1 solution was the only one adopted in the race, mostly paired with the rear soft SC0 in Supersport, and with the D0922 medium development option in Superbike – a solution the riders were already familiar with, after using it in the same race last year. Even though a couple of riders went for the new F0468 specification, it was somewhat affected by its being new, and, especially on a circuit so demanding on tyres such as Most – and due to the rather low temperatures as well – the riders felt safer working with an option they already know very well, rather than trying out something new. We will see whether this changes in tomorrow’s races.”