Bulega leads as WorldSBK Testing gets underway in Jerez with a Ducati 1-2-3

WorldSBK 2025

January Jerez Test Day One

The 2025 FIM Superbike World Championship season officially began overnight with the opening day of the first official pre-season test at Jerez on Wednesday.

2024 runner-up Nicolo Bulega (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) kicked off his 2025 campaign in style as almost the entire WorldSBK field gathered in Spain for the session. Bulega was the only rider to dip into the 1’38s bracket, fending off Andrea Iannone (Team Pata GoEleven), who finished second.

Scott Redding (MGM BONOVO Racing) is already showing strong form on the Panigale V4 R, ending the day in third place.

Scott Redding – Bonovo Ducati

“My goal was try to go P1 on my first day… it’s a little bit ambitious, but you’ve got to aim high! I also had a yellow flag on my best lap so I lost a little bit of time. In general, to be top three on my first day and all of these guys have tested I think two times two days or three days since the end of the season; it was hard to get up to speed initially but when I found my rhythm and relaxed a little bit, I could build. My best lap was on the SCQ and then I did s 1’40 with the race tyre. The first day’s been really amazing. I wasn’t able to ride the bike at the end of the year, so I was realty eager. I finally got that feeling back on my fingertips. Today was worth waiting for! Today ended up being a really good day and a great start for me and the team.”

Garrett Gerloff (Kawasaki WorldSBK Team) in his third test on the ZX-10RR, showed strong form, recording a 1’39.332s to secure fourth place ahead of Bimota’s Axel Bassani and Barni Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci.

Xavi Vierge (Honda HRC) commenced work with new Crew Chief Tetsuya Sasaki and finished in sixth with a 1’39.916s. HRC is on Ohlins suspension this season, after running Showa in 2022, 23 and 24. Iker Lecuona is absent from this test due to injury.

Jose Escamez – HRC Team Manager

“The day has been good because the weather has respected the predictions from Tuesday. So far, we are good enough, we can say but not happy at all. It’s quite good. Xavi has been doing laps and everything looks as we expected. This means we’re in the same way that we finished last year, which is already a positive point.  It’s going to be a way of creating or establishing a base setup. It’s been quite good. We have found, quickly, the right way to keep going. We have been working to find a good base setup, and this will help the riders feel comfortable for lap times, of course, and there are some differences with the previous suspension we’ve been using. Just trying to understand but there’s not much difference, though. There’s a small improvement in performance and also feedback from riders. It’s a fair enough reason to let them ride with this one.”

Álvaro Bautista (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) secured eighth place, while Sam Lowes (ELF Marc VDS Racing Team) finished in ninth ahead of brother Alex on the Bimota KB998.

World Champion Toprak Razgatlioglu was missing from the testing action on Tuesday after recently fracturing a finger while riding enduro which required three screws to be inserted to repair the damage. In his absence Dutchman Michael van der Mark was the quickest BMW in tenth.

Remy Gardner was the fastest Yamaha on Wednesday, ahead of Jonathan Rea. Yamaha riders tried a new swing-arm amongst other items up for evaluation.

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Paul Denning – Pata Yamaha Team Principal

“We’re coming into it with a lot of enthusiasm because we didn’t have a lot of success last year. We had some very competitive races and some podiums with ‘Loka’, but ’24 was a tough year compared to the high standards that Yamaha and the team and the riders set themselves. A big reaction from everybody involved in the project; Yamaha in terms of technical development, the riders in terms of their own preparations and, as a team, we’ve changed a few things around internally to create a different working atmosphere and to improve the current situation. It’s been a good, very short, few weeks since the end of the Jerez race. We had a very positive November test here at Jerez and looking forward to the new season and to taking a massive step forward.

“The first thing on Jonathan’s side is we changed the team around, with the new crew chief, which is always a risk because we had an extremely experienced and very capable guy in that position, but changing the dynamic is sometimes something that an athlete needs, and Jonathan felt he needed that. I have to say that it worked, from the evidence of those two days, really well. That was a big positive that we’ll obviously keep expanding forwards on. Technically, there was some stuff that ‘JR’ actually felt made a positive difference to performance which, maybe, during the year we introduced a lot of stuff and it felt different but not necessarily better. We’re able to take some steps forward which gave him confidence and he rode really well. There was some great stuff on JR’s side. On Locatelli’s side, he tested a new development swingarm that, again, was fortunate in that it gave a proper step forward in grip and performance. That’s been introduced for the new season. It was just a good basis in which to start the development path for the 2025 season.

“Electronics, we tested some stuff that was quite encouraging and had some good potential for the future. The engine was the ’24 motor at that point. Outright acceleration and performance is clearly an area, not so much for lap time but as a racing machine, that we need to improve on to make the riders’ life just a little bit easier. We’ve got some developments coming, hopefully in time for the Portimao test next week, at least as a shakedown. The work’s been fairly relentless and the investments in time, effort and, of course, money are significant to take a step forward and fingers crossed we’re going to be able to deliver that difference in performance very shortly.”

A number of World Supersport riders were also on track at the test with Marcel Schrötter (WRP Racing) topping the timesheets with a 1’43.289 ahead of Kaito Toba (PETRONAS MIE Honda Racing).

Jeremy Alcoba (Kawasaki WorldSSP Team) impressed in his WorldSSP debut, securing third place, half-a-second off Schrötter’s time. Ondrej Vostatek (WRP Racing) rounded out the top five. Meanwhile, QJMOTOR Factory Racing had both Raffaele De Rosa and Niki Tuuli testing current and prototype bikes, with both riders setting times in the 1’44s range. De Rosa suffered a crash at Turn 6 but continued testing. Corentin Perolari (Honda RACING World Supersport) finished in sixth place, with his team-mate Ana Carrasco close behind in seventh.

Road Racing star Michael Dunlop joined the WorldSBK regulars on a Milwaukee Ducati branded Panigale V2 Supersport bike.

Testing continues tomorrow.

The opening round of the 2025 Motul FIM Superbike World Championship gets underway at Phillip Island on February 21. Organisers have confirmed that the season opener will feature mandatory pit stops due to tyre wear issues on the notoriously abrasive Phillip Island track surface.

Jerez WorldSBK Test Times
Day One – January 22

Compiled with the assistance of Dorna

2025 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship Calendar