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Nicolò Bulega joined us on Thursday evening for a live post-WDW chat. With the Aruba rider we talked about the Race of Champions as well as the new Panigale V4 and this 2025, which sees him as Toprak's direct rival for the title.
The top class rookie was very blunt and direct without mincing his words much less evading the questions. Inevitable of course was the one about last Saturday's incident with Marc Marquez during the race at WDW.
"I think there is very little to say, " he commented, "I don't want to feed further controversy, since in my opinion there has also been too much of it. On Saturday night, after the race, Marc came looking for me in the box, but I had already gone home after being at the medical center. Afterwards he wrote me a message apologizing and saying that unfortunately he screwed up. For me the matter was already closed and over there. In fact, now I'll be the journalist and ask you: do you think if an eight-time world champion thinks he didn't make any mistake, he would have given me his helmet? I think that already the helmet is the answer."
Nicolo, let's talk about the new Ducati V4, unveiled at WDW. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until 2026 before taking it to the track.
"That is already a problem," he joked, "the new Ducati V4 gave me the idea of an easy bike to get to the limit. It's honest, it talks to you a lot, it doesn't do abrupt things like maybe a bike with so much horsepower could do. It almost felt like a 600 because of how easy it was and how intuitive it was. I think a good step was taken."
Let's talk a little bit about the human side. Can we say that the Superbike paddock introduced us to the real Bulega?
"The last years in Moto2 were difficult, especially the last one, where I didn't even feel like packing my suitcase to go racing. It had become a very difficult situation and something I had to do. Initially I was not convinced about SSP, but then you realize that it is not as bad as you think, as the top teams in SSP are as professional as those in Moto2, if not more so. Then between 2022 and 2023 I saw a little light, fueling the fact that I could win the title and then put SBK in my sights."
Have you ever thought about trying MotoGP in the future?
"This year I started thinking about it. Eventually every rider is curious to see how far he can go. At the moment I feel good because I can exploit 100 percent of the Panigale. However, I would like to try the Desmosedici, just to get my curiosity out of the way and see how I feel in the saddle, that is, whether I can adapt or not. Then the future I don't know ... Let's say I'm not on time, but I'm not late either."
