BULEGA DEFENDS HIS EARLY TESTING OF DUCATI’S 2027 MOTOGP BIKE

Nicolo Bulega will arrive in MotoGP in 2027 with experience of Ducati’s new 850cc bike and the championship’s incoming Pirelli tyres—an early head start that has prompted criticism from KTM test rider Pol Espargaro. Bulega rejects the suggestion that his testing is unfair, saying the programme was arranged before he knew he would become a full-time MotoGP rider.

Espargaro called Bulega’s advance running a “massive and unfair advantage” at the Spielberg weekend. Bulega, speaking ahead of the World Superbike round at Cremona, countered: “We haven’t done anything against the rules. I’m a Superbike rider. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to test a MotoGP bike?”

He said his Ducati test-rider role was agreed last year, when a move to MotoGP was not yet settled. “We had already planned these tests before we knew I would go to MotoGP, so it wasn’t a strategy,” he explained. Although he had hoped to reach the premier class, he said a 2027 race seat was not part of the original plan. The decision came later in the current season.

Bulega is set to ride for Pertamina Enduro VR46, taking Franco Morbidelli’s place. Morbidelli, in turn, will move to Bulega’s current Aruba team. Bulega accepts that his test mileage could help when the new era begins, but disputes the idea that Ducati is developing the bike around him.

A test rider, he said, follows the manufacturer’s programme rather than choosing parts to suit personal preferences. “They give me a thousand things to try,” Bulega said. “I can’t say: I want this, I don’t want that.” He added that the Desmosedici is being developed for the factory riders, not tailored to his needs; his job is to report whether he likes particular components.

Bulega welcomed Marc Marquez’s positive comments about his prospects, but cautioned against overstating his advantage. Pirelli will replace Michelin as MotoGP’s tyre supplier in 2027, and Bulega has years of experience with the brand from Supersport and Superbike, as well as time on its MotoGP-specification tyres. Still, he expects the established riders to adapt quickly. “They may need one or two test days to understand them,” he said, predicting that riders would be at roughly the same level on tyres by the first race.

The MotoGP Pirelli is not the same as a Superbike tyre, Bulega stressed. Its front may be somewhat easier to understand than Michelin because of a similar underlying character, but the bike and riding style differ substantially from Superbike. His experience may be useful in some areas, he said, without making the two machines directly comparable.

“Of course, it can help me at the beginning to have already ridden this bike in some tests,” Bulega acknowledged. But he expects the gap to narrow once the regular riders get their own opportunities to test. He pointed to Marquez as an example of how quickly top MotoGP riders can learn, and noted that Ducati’s chassis will remain broadly similar to this year’s. Bulega’s position is that the early mileage will ease his transition, not give him a decisive or specially engineered advantage.