5 Years of Happiness: My Best Moment

Few laps and on a wet track, but Lecuona has already had some positive sensations with the Panigale V4 R in the test in Jerez.

Pre-season tests are always important, even more so when there is a new bike to develop and when a new rider arrives in the garage. This situation exists in the Aruba.it Racing Ducati team, which will field a new Panigale V4 R in 2026 and welcomes Iker Lecuona as Nicolò Bulega’s new partner. Unfortunately, on the first day of testing in Jerez the conditions were not ideal: it rained and with a wet track the Spaniard completed only 14 laps, finishing fifth in the general classification.

Superbike Test Jerez, day 1: Lecuona’s assessment

Interviewed by the official WorldSBK channels, the former Honda HRC team rider had this to say about the first of the two days of work in Andalusia: “There were some pretty complicated conditions. We decided to ride on a wet track, since we have a new bike and everything is new for me with this team. The problem is that it was windy, at some moments it was a bit dangerous. I only did 12 laps or something like that, but still I felt good, comfortable. I like what I heard. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow, we’ll have more chances to try“.

Lecuona did a few kilometers with the Ducati Panigale V4 R, already tested in Jerez in October, but the very first indications are encouraging: “The conditions were complicated, so it’s difficult to make judgements. In October I tested the bike and felt pretty good. I worked a lot over the winter with the stock bike and it went well. We’ll see if we can ride in the dry tomorrow and confirm the positive sensations“.

Iker has just returned from four seasons in Superbike with the Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP, a completely different bike with which he had several difficulties: “Today I tried to do some laps, to understand how the bike and the electronics worked in the wet. Last year I struggled a lot and in today’s 12 laps I had the best feeling of the last 5 years. I’m happy about this. Tomorrow I will try to do a lot of laps and adapt to the bike, not adapt the bike to me“.