New successes for Bulega with Pirelli’s softest rear tyres in the range

· Bulega celebrates in front of his home crowd. The pressure of racing on home soil had no effect on Nicolò Bulega, who ended the racing opening day at the Pirelli Emilia-Romagna Round as the increasingly dominant leader of the FIM Superbike World Championship. After securing pole position in the morning, the Italian went on to win Race 1 ahead of fellow Ducati riders Iker Lecuona and Yari Montella. In terms of tyre choices, all the frontrunners opted for the standard SCX supersoft rear and SC1 soft front, with the exception of Stefano Manzi (Yamaha), who was the only rider to choose the SC2 medium front.

· Race thirteen seconds faster. The 21-lap race was completed in 32’40.418, which was 13.2 seconds quicker than Race 1 in 2025 – despite last year’s track temperatures being 8°C lower – representing an average lap time improvement of 0.633 seconds. On his way to a 23rd consecutive victory, Bulega also set a new fastest race lap of 1’32.552, beating the previous record established by Toprak Razgatlıoğlu at last year’s event by 0.135 seconds.

· Record-breaking debut for the SCQ. The Pirelli Emilia-Romagna Round also marked the debut of the SCQ extrasoft as a standard-range tyre, the reference specification for qualifying and the Superpole Race. At the end of the 15-minute Superpole session, Bulega set a new circuit record with a lap of 1’31.343, improving by 0.275 seconds on the 1’31.618 benchmark he had set himself last year. His teammate Lecuona also lapped below the previous record, stopping the clock at 1’31.570.
 
· Sixth win for Debise and ZXMOTO. WorldSSP Race 1 was won by French rider Valentine Debise (ZXMOTO), who in a final-brake duel got the better of Spaniard Albert Arenas (Yamaha), with Turkey’s Can Öncü (Yamaha) finishing third. Every rider on the grid used standard-range Pirelli tyres, combining the SC1 soft front with the SCX supersoft rear. Race 1 of the World Sportbike category, which uses Pirelli DIABLO™ Superbike tyres in SC1 compound front and rear, was won by Bruno Ieraci (Triumph), while the opening WorldWCR race of the weekend was claimed by championship leader Maria Herrera.

A record-breaking Saturday under the Misano sun
 
“The racing opening day at the Misano World Circuit highlighted a significant step forward in performance in the Superbike class, as demonstrated by new benchmark times in qualifying, race pace and overall race distance. For the seventh round of the FIM Superbike World Championship, we chose to focus on the softest solutions in the Pirelli range, introducing the new SCQ extrasoft rear, the evolution of the E0479 development specification that made its debut at this circuit last season and which today enabled Bulega to set a new outright lap record.
In light of the limited wear and consistent performance shown over race distance as well, it will be particularly interesting to see how many riders choose this solution for tomorrow morning’s Superpole Race and what impact it may have in terms of performance.
The SCX supersoft rear once again proved to be the benchmark choice over race distance, delivering a very high level of performance from the very first sessions. The overall Race 1 time, 13 seconds faster than a year ago, is evidence of the significant progress made by the manufacturers over this period, as well as by Pirelli”.