The Spanish rider was replaced at Gresini Racing<\/a> by Ducati MotoGP test rider Michele Pirro<\/a> at last weekend\u2019s Italian Grand Prix, but it will be a new rider aboard the Desmosedici GP26 this weekend at Balaton Park.<\/p>\n Gresini has called on Ducati WorldSBK<\/a> rider Iker Lecuona<\/a> to replace Marquez this weekend, the Spanish rider getting his first MotoGP chance since he replaced Alex Rins<\/a> at LCR Honda in 2023.<\/p>\n Show Instagram Embedded Content<\/p>\n Loading this video will expose you to potential cookies and tracking by the provider<\/p>\n Lecuona\u2019s first experience of the Balaton Park circuit in 2025 was not among his career highlights, the Spaniard being injured in the turn two crash caused by Andrea Iannone with significant wrist and forearm fractures. He missed most of the second half of the season as a result of those injuries, but this year, aboard the Aruba.it Racing Ducati, Lecuona was second to Nicolo Bulega<\/a> in all three races.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Bulega himself would appear a more obvious choice for a MotoGP replacement ride. He replaced Marc Marquez at the factory Ducati team at the end of last season and was reasonably competitive, and has beaten Lecuona in every race they\u2019ve had as teammates in WorldSBK this year \u2013 Bulega, indeed, has won all of the 18 races so far in 2022.<\/p>\n Nicolo Bulega, 2026 MotoGP Valencia Test. Credit: Gold and Goose.<\/p>\n \u00a9\u00a0Gold & Goose<\/p>\n The Italian did indeed have a chance to replace Marquez this weekend, but he turned the opportunity down, he revealed last weekend at Aragon.<\/p>\n \u201cI had the opportunity to ride as a replacement for Alex Marquez in MotoGP at Balaton, but I decided to stay focused on WorldSBK,\u201d he told WorldSBK.com.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the moment to take any risk at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Bulega\u2019s WorldSBK championship lead currently sits at 107 points over Lecuona.<\/p>\n Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This weekend\u2019s Hungarian MotoGP (5\u20137 June) will see Alex Marquez sidelined again through injury and a new rider…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[8454,64,63,234256,62679,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-710287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-alex-marquez","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-iker-lecuona","tag-michele-pirro","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Nicolo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/gng_1287115_hires.jpg\")
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