Iker Lecuona: His Ducati V4R has never been tougher to ride than at Magny-Cours

After Iker Lecuona celebrated his first Superbike victory in the first race at Donington Park and then suffered his first crash of the year in the Superpole Race, the Ducati works rider resumed his run of second-place finishes at Magny-Cours – for the seventh time in the 2026 Superbike World Championship, the Spaniard crossed the finish line in second place behind his Aruba.it team-mate in all three races.

And yet it was somewhat different from usual. Lecuona agreed with his team principal to take more risks with the chassis set-up. True to the saying: nothing ventured, nothing gained.

“I’d made a firm resolution to do that for Magny-Cours – regardless of whether it meant I’d win or fall behind. I wanted to try out different set-ups,” the 26-year-old explained to a small group of journalists. “For the warm-up, we’d completely overhauled the set-up and I felt pretty good with it. There were a few minor issues that we tried to sort out for the sprint race. But after four laps, the rear tyre lost grip and, with two laps to go, the front tyre also started to give out significantly. It became increasingly difficult to get the bike through the bends. Although it wasn’t particularly hot, it was the most physically demanding race of the year for me. In the second race, my pace wasn’t fast enough to stay close to Nicolò, but all in all, I’m happy with the weekend.”

Willkommen zum Rennen in Magny-Cours

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Nicolò Bulega

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Axel Bassani

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Boxengasse

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Garrett Gerloff

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Fans

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Xavier Vierge

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Sam Lowes

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Iker Lecuona

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Álvaro Bautista

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Start des Rennens

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Lorenzo Baldassarri

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Axel Bassani

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Sam Lowes

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Nicolò Bulega

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Iker Lecuona

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Yari Montella

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Nicolò Bulega gewinnt beide Läufe in Frankreich

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Bulega und Lecuona

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Podium Lauf 1 - Iker Lecuona, Nicolò Bulega, Sam Lowes

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Podium Lauf 2 - Iker Lecuona, Nicolò Bulega, Yari Montella

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Sieger Nicolò Bulega

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Willkommen zum Rennen in Magny-Cours

© Gold & Goose

The three second-place finishes were at least enough to postpone Bulega’s title win until Ducati’s home race in Cremona. A test is taking place on the Italian circuit this week, in which the factory team will also be taking part.

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“The positive thing is that I’m still finishing second even when I’ve had problems. I need to be patient, because Nicolò simply has that slight edge over me and, on top of that, he has far more experience on the Ducati at Magny-Cours than I do,” said Lecuona. “Overall, I’m satisfied with the results, as we can work with the data we’ve gathered. We tried out many different set-up options that could prove useful in the future, and that was one of the main objectives of the weekend.”