MotoGP - "It will be difficult" - Nicolo Bulega laments lack of preparation ahead of MotoGP debut

While the major questions surrounding the 2025 MotoGP season have already been answered, the race weekend in Portimao will be a very special event for one man. Superbike star Nicolo Bulega will make his debut in the premier class as a replacement for world champion Marc Marquez . Despite his great anticipation, he doesn't feel ready for it.

Given the great opportunity, the Ducati reserve rider was in excellent spirits on Thursday. "I feel wonderful and I love these colors. Of course, it looks similar to the Superbike World Championship livery, but this suits me even better. Just wearing these colors is already a great experience," he began his first media appearance as a MotoGP rider in red.

It's an opportunity that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. "This is the best way to return here [to the MotoGP paddock, ed.]. I'm wearing the colors of the world champion team and riding the world champion's bike. And it's in Portimao, on a track I really like," Bulega beams. From 2015 to 2021, he competed in Moto3 and Moto2, but didn't stand out. It was only after a detour through the Supersport class and the Superbike World Championship that his career gained momentum. Now, he's returning to the MotoGP World Championship. To make it almost too perfect, the Superbike runner-up of the last two years will be making his 100th World Championship start this weekend.

When it came to the details of his upcoming work, however, it quickly became clear what a mountain the 26-year-old had to climb. "I had the opportunity to start in Malaysia. But to be honest, I asked Ducati to let me do a test beforehand," the Ducati rider revealed. He now has to adapt in almost every aspect: "MotoGP isn't like the Superbike World Championship, it's not easy. The chassis is completely different, the engine has more power. Then there are the carbon brakes, the ride height devices, and the Michelin tires are different from the Pirellis. That's a lot of small things that together make a massive difference."

Furthermore, the preparation requested by Ducati didn't go according to plan due to external circumstances. "I also had bad luck at the test in Jerez. It rained the entire first day, and then it's very difficult for the asphalt to dry out there. There were still damp patches everywhere, even on the second day. In the end, I was only able to complete 30 laps, so you can't learn many things. This weekend will certainly be difficult for me," Bulega sighed about the Spanish weather.

Setup, seating position, and other typical topics for rookie riders haven't even been addressed yet. "In 30 laps of MotoGP, you're not working on anything. You're first trying to understand what you actually need to do to complete 30 laps safely," the rookie said frankly about his current MotoGP experience. Accordingly, he's not making any grand pronouncements: "There's no goal. I simply want to get to know the bike session by session. I want to understand what I need to do differently compared to Superbike racing."

While Bulega is mainly anticipating tough lessons, another rider is somewhat more optimistic. KTM test rider Pol Espargaro was also in Jerez last week and shared the track with the newcomer. Since he is still standing in for Maverick Viñales , the Catalan also answered questions from the media on Thursday.

"I know he set his time on the soft tire, but that was pretty fast. We couldn't use a soft tire because our tire selection was very limited. We could have been a bit faster than Nicolo with it, but honestly, he impressed me. That was a good lap time considering the conditions. After the rain, the track wasn't clean and didn't have much grip," the Tech3 rider said positively about Bulega's first outing.

With a time of 1:38.0, the Italian was two-tenths of a second faster than the MotoGP veteran. A comparison with the significantly faster times from the Grand Prix weekend in April was obviously meaningless given the poorer conditions. Now, Bulega will get a real taste of what it's like to be compared with the best motorcycle riders in the world at the race weekend in Portimao.

The last time a player made a mid-season debut was in 2022. We took a look at Nicolo Bulega's predecessors and their career paths: