Bulega heads the field after free practice for the French Round at Magny-Cours. Lecuona finishes third in the combined standings

Free practice for the French Round, the ninth round of the 2026 WorldSBK season, concluded with Nicolò Bulega and Iker Lecuona in first and third place respectively.

The Italian rider from the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team took advantage of the better track conditions to set the fastest time of the day (1'35.556) in FP1. In the afternoon, with much higher temperatures – around 45 degrees on the tarmac – Bulega was unable to improve on his time, but still finished the second session in first place.

It was the same story for Lecuona, who was strong in FP1 with the third-fastest time (1'35.989) before suffering a crash in FP2 – albeit without any serious consequences – which forced him to break up his set-up work.

Nicolò Bulega (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #11)
“I can't say I'm satisfied with this first day. I'm still missing something in terms of feel because I can't ride my Panigale V4 R the way I'd like to. But at the same time, I'm sure that, with my team, we'll manage to find some set-up solutions that will allow us to take a step forward tomorrow.”

Iker Lecuona (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #7)
“We've worked hard on the set-up, trying out some new ideas as well. Given our position in the standings, it will be important to focus on this in the final stage of the season as well to gather useful data for the future. The crash? Nothing out of the ordinary, but I'd like to thank the team for their extraordinary work, which enabled me to get back on track.”