After making his debut at the end of last season, Nicolo Bulega built on his opening performance by sending a warning to his WorldSBK rivals.

It must be♈ said that Bulega’s stunning time of 1:38.292s was set on the SCQ tyre, 🦹whereas many of the big names did not fit the qualifying tyre.

• Danilo Petrucci: ‘Alvaro Bautista the f𒁏avourite💟, four or five kilos won’t change the cards’ 

• Nicolo Bulega:ꦜ 2024 ‘will be a ꧙very important year for me’

Still, Bulega’s time was only half a second off the 𝐆lap record, which ꦡwas set by Jonathan Rea in 2019.

Speaking after the opening day of testing at Jerez, Bulega said: “Not too many problems, we just had to put some more fuel in. I had a g🌸ood feeling, almost li🌺ke I wanted so this was important.

“I had fun with my bike and my team. We are starting to understand 🐈each other in a good direction.

“I think we are working in a good way, and I just need more laps on the bike. We were working on my pos꧂ition on the bike because this is completely different and bigger, so I need t♛o adapt my body to the bike.

“We tried something 📖different with the handlebar. Not incredible things, just to have a good base.”

In terms of what he wants to imp♕rove on during today’s final day of action before another two day test at Portimao next week, Bulega felt that his used tyre performance need💖ed work.

“Maybe we can improve with used tyres,” added the Italian when speaking to WorldSBK.com. “I am fast, especially with newജ tyres, but I have to work with used tyres.

“If I can be fast ♋with used tyres, like I am with new ones, I can be competitive.”