Nicolo Bulega has been in complete command of WorldSBK so far in 2026, but his teammate, Iker Lecuona, feels he is getting closer to being able to challenge the Italian.

Lecuona finished second to Bulega in all three races at Assen, three weeks on from achieving the same results at Portimao.

The Spaniard is now second in the World Superbike stanidngs, but 69 points behind Bulega. Despite the gap and Bulega’s unbeaten start to the season, Lecuona feels he is close to his teammate’ level.

“At the end, the fastest lap is just two-tenths slower than him,” Iker Lecuona told WorldSBK.com after Race 2 in Assen.

“So, at the end, we are close compared to [Race 1] or close compared to [the Superpole Race]. 

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“Every time I jump on the bike we learn something, and we need to take the feeling. Of course, it’s not my 100 per cent bike, so still I don’t feel 100 per cent ready to fight for the victory, but let’s see. 

“The good thing is we improved our performance, we learnt a lot, and we did another three P2s, that is second place in the championship, take more gap compared to Sam [Lowes] that this weekend pushed me so hard during the races.”

Lecuona explained that he also took some risks with the bike setup on Sunday to try to improve, having struggled with front tyre consumption in Race 1. He found the changes helped, but he also made mistakes.

“I did a really good job during the weekend,” he said.

“Sometimes I struggled a lot, sometimes I felt a bit more comfortable. 

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“In the sprint, I felt a bit better with the bike, I did a small step, but not enough or not in the right way, so we changed again the bike for the second race that was quite in a ‘safe’ mode, but we changed the bike to something that we never tried. 

“We wanted to take the risk because [in Race 1] I destroyed the front tyre.

“At the end it was [good], just I had two huge moments on turn 12 that I almost crashed two times, and I lost half-a-second or six-tenths in two laps, each lap. 

“I’m really happy, Nicolo [Bulega] is a bit faster than me, but I know that this is one of his best track. Let’s see if we can [improve] the position in the next races.”