Nicolo Bulega: ‘I would have signed for second place behind Toprak two months ago’
Nicolo Bulega was left upbeat following Race 1 of the Catalunya WorldSBK round, despite being caught and passed by Toprak Razgatlioglu for vict🧔ory.
Nicolo Bulega led much of the race as he stretched clear from the likes of 🦋Andrea Iannone and Toprak Razgatlioglu.
Bulega inherited the lead a few laps in when fellow rookie Sam Lowes crashed out, which be♌gan a🅘 series of very fast laps from the Italian.
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But despite being in contrℱol for much of the race, Bulega eventually ran into tyre wear issues and began shedding time to Razgatlioglu.
After being caught on the penultimate lap, Bulega lo❀st the lead at turn five before finishing just under a second down on the BMW rider.
“Honestly, I didn’t have a strategy,” said Bℱulega. “It🍒 was my first long race because in Australia we did a pit stop.
“In the end, unfortunately my rear tyre was completely dead. It was difficult for me to manage and Toprak was very fast in the𝕴 end.
“His tyr💎e life was ꦏa bit better than mine. Maybe I pushed a little bit too much at the beginning to overtake them because I was very fast.
“Today, I think I learned somet𓄧hing. 💞I will be more prepared next time.”
Bulega made a 💟good start to Race 1, something he s🐟truggled to do throughout the season-opener.
However, Bulega was stil🐎l pushed down order after being overtaken by Iannone and Lowes at the🎃 first corner.
Admitting h🍨e could be more aggressive, Bulega said: “The start was good because I improved a lot from Australia.
“Then, in the first corner; I don’t remember who it was - maybe Lowes - entered very aggressively and I lost some🐭 po𒁏sitions.
“I’m happy because I improved the start but maybeജ I can be a bit more aggressive in the first few corners.”
Asked w๊hen he began suffering with h🍬is rear tyre, Bulega said he could do nothing to stop the gap to Razgatlioglu from dropping with three laps remaining.
Bulega added: “Three🐻 laps to go. My pit board guy gave me the seconds and I saw 3, 2, 1 but 🧜it was not enough to win the race.
“I’m happy because I’m a𒐪 rookie and I’m only at my second round.
“If you asked me two months ago I would sign for a second place behind Toprak on the lasꦺt lap.
“So iღt is a nice first two races for me and it’s more experience.”
